Cardgame Thread (guilds of ravnica mechanics spoiled!)

On the Magic front, I basically quit playing standard for like a year+ for the duration of the CoCo meta, but I decided to buy into Kaladesh standard after I saw that I could pick up a RB artifact aggro deck for around $100. The game was pretty fun for the first few weeks and felt pretty well-balanced, but now it feels like everyone at my store is on GB delirium which unfortunately is one of my worst matchups (actually, it feels like it's every deck's worst matchup). Standard MTG generally just becoming midrange.format has kind of killed my enthusiasm for it, though I guess it's nice that aggro feels semi-viable, though I feel like the social aspect of FNM is the main thing that gets me into the store at this point. (I think the last time I really had fun playing standard was right after KTK when I could play UB tapout control.) I'd rather be playing modern or legacy right now, but they're not supported locally. (The only time I got to play modern was during modern PPTQ season right before Kaladesh released, and legacy gets zero support where I live.) In January I'll be moving to Pittsburgh which apparently has a really active legacy scene, so I'm looking forward to that.


On the digital CCG front, I recently started playing Shadowverse, and it feels great. What Acklow said about combo decks offering fun alternate wincons is spot on, and this game feels like a better Hearthstone in so many respects, both in terms of the game design allowing for combo decks to exist, and also the fact that it feels a lot friendlier to players who don't spend money on their F2P CCG. I get that people don't like to play against non-interactive decks, but considering the thing that drove me away from Magic was the fact that it just all became about midrange creature combat (and the fact that legacy remains my favorite Magic format), I hope that Shadowverse continues in its current direction.

I've been meaning to try Eternal since seeing a bunch of people on the Magic twitterverse talking about it. What's the monetization scheme like there? Does it seem like it's going to be expensive to play the game competitively?
 
4 Rarities, common, uncommon, rare, legendary.

You get all the commons really quickly, and most of the good uncommons. 4 copies of anything in your decks, including legendaries.

Packs are 1000 gold, with 3 uncommons and a rare that can be a legendary about 1/8 of the time. Opening a pack also gives you free crafting dust.

Gauntlet (the free AI battle mode) and ranked pull bronze and silver rewards chests which float you a little less than 1000 gold every few wins and random commons and uncommons (with an outside chance for better)

Forge (the paid AI draft mode) and Draft, cost 2500 and 5000 gold respectively, give you about as many rares as you would pay for spending it on packs (with the possibility for more/less depending on how much you like raredrafting in draft and the same small chance for legendaries) They also have much better upside for winning more, with an average amount of wins you can earn your gold back + packs and with more it blows up.

I find that your first low to mid budget competitive deck will be accessible but many decks chock full of legendaries require much more commitment. You can replace any instance of 1000 gold with $1 for an estimation of real money if you decide to spend it.

I'm still pretty hesitant to spend money on Shadowverse tbh because the important legends in that game are pretty expensive.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Well one thing that Shadowverse currently has going for it is the fact that some of the top-tier decks in the current meta are fairly cheap to craft. You have Garuda Havencraft, Elena Havencraft, and Banner Swordcraft. Garuda and Banner can be built with a budget and don't require too many vials. They are aggro decks, so they are also generally straightforward in how they are played. Elena is a midrange deck that can play like an aggro deck and has a lot of strength in being able to survive through the aggro meta's early game.

Other fairly cheap decks include Aggro Dragoncraft and Tempo Runecraft.

But yeah, if you want to play decks like Spell Runecraft or Path to Purgatory/Tempo Forestcraft, then you are going to have to spend a little moola or get really good pulls from packs.

I was lucky enough to get the pulls I needed to play both Pascale Runecraft and Aggro Dragoncraft, the former being an amazing deck for anti-aggro in the lower tiers of the ladder, while Aggro Dragoncraft is just an overall solid aggro deck. I am currently in the process of building Spell Runecraft, but I would love to play Control Swordcraft or Control Bloodcraft if I could (those two decks actually cost quite a bit to craft).

I would still recommend trying out Shadowverse due to the fact that you get a ton of packs when you make an account and a ton of arena tickets that can net you even more packs and gold.
 
I've been meaning to try Eternal since seeing a bunch of people on the Magic twitterverse talking about it. What's the monetization scheme like there? Does it seem like it's going to be expensive to play the game competitively?
4 Rarities, common, uncommon, rare, legendary.

You get all the commons really quickly, and most of the good uncommons. 4 copies of anything in your decks, including legendaries.

Packs are 1000 gold, with 3 uncommons and a rare that can be a legendary about 1/8 of the time. Opening a pack also gives you free crafting dust.

Gauntlet (the free AI battle mode) and ranked pull bronze and silver rewards chests which float you a little less than 1000 gold every few wins and random commons and uncommons (with an outside chance for better)

Forge (the paid AI draft mode) and Draft, cost 2500 and 5000 gold respectively, give you about as many rares as you would pay for spending it on packs (with the possibility for more/less depending on how much you like raredrafting in draft and the same small chance for legendaries) They also have much better upside for winning more, with an average amount of wins you can earn your gold back + packs and with more it blows up.

I find that your first low to mid budget competitive deck will be accessible but many decks chock full of legendaries require much more commitment. You can replace any instance of 1000 gold with $1 for an estimation of real money if you decide to spend it.

I'm still pretty hesitant to spend money on Shadowverse tbh because the important legends in that game are pretty expensive.
Don't forget you also get a weekly quest for each friendly faction (Feln, Stonescar, Rakano, Elysian, Combrei) where you are literally given a deck in those factions/colors to keep as long as you can eventually win 5 games with it (or any deck with those 2 particular colors). The decks are actually decent as well for anyone just starting out.
 
Hey!

I used to play Magic the Gathering all the time back in college. It made me a lot of friends through card shops, and my little abode became the Magic house, where people would come over and play Magic the Gathering practically all day every day. Entirely EDH too, we would all help each other build crazy decks.

Great times. Think I still have the Ezuri & Niv Mizzit decks laying around somewhere.
 

The Avalanches

pokemon tcg
is a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus

Came 2nd at a League Challenge event on the weekend with my Yveltal deck. In anticipation that I'd be playing other Yveltal decks all day long, I snuck a 2-2 line of Zebstrika in the deck, as its attack does 220 damage to any Pokemon with a Lightning weakness AND a Fighting resistance (basically all Flying-types)

I went 4-1, beating two Yveltal decks, a Mega Ray deck (all thanks to Zebstrika) and an Eeveelutions deck. I lost to a Vileplume deck thanks to a few misplays.
 
Shadowverse has some really really cool mechanics, but the art style is quite a turn off.

Eternal, on the other hand, is just amazing. Not a huge fan of the mulligan rule but the game is simply a blast to play. Finished my PvE grinding to put together a budget Feln Control list so now I can even play ranked (no, I did not even get bored of grinding for cards against AI, that's how enjoyable the game is). Both SV and Eternal are incredibly newb-friendly compared to Hearthstone, so if you're looking for a CCG to get into, I'd recommend these two.

if anyone wants to add me or w/e:
Eternal: Aladyyn+6627
Shadowverse: 225 955 669
 

Omega-Xis

Mauville's Own
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
Well one thing that Shadowverse currently has going for it is the fact that some of the top-tier decks in the current meta are fairly cheap to craft. You have Garuda Havencraft, Elena Havencraft, and Banner Swordcraft. Garuda and Banner can be built with a budget and don't require too many vials. They are aggro decks, so they are also generally straightforward in how they are played. Elena is a midrange deck that can play like an aggro deck and has a lot of strength in being able to survive through the aggro meta's early game.

Other fairly cheap decks include Aggro Dragoncraft and Tempo Runecraft.

But yeah, if you want to play decks like Spell Runecraft or Path to Purgatory/Tempo Forestcraft, then you are going to have to spend a little moola or get really good pulls from packs.

I was lucky enough to get the pulls I needed to play both Pascale Runecraft and Aggro Dragoncraft, the former being an amazing deck for anti-aggro in the lower tiers of the ladder, while Aggro Dragoncraft is just an overall solid aggro deck. I am currently in the process of building Spell Runecraft, but I would love to play Control Swordcraft or Control Bloodcraft if I could (those two decks actually cost quite a bit to craft).

I would still recommend trying out Shadowverse due to the fact that you get a ton of packs when you make an account and a ton of arena tickets that can net you even more packs and gold.
To piggyback off of this, Shadowverse gave away quite a bit of rupees (or gold as most people just refer to them as) for Xmas/New Year's, over 3,000. Pack is 100 a Take Two run (Arena for HSers) is 150. They still have the "Battle 20 Players in Private Matches" quest going that's 2,000 free gold, the thread to join the rooms people are making is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5kuzmq/private_match_rupie_bonus_megathread/

I've mostly been playing Aggro Bat Bloodcraft lately and I'm already at A0 and almost A1 as of right now, I haven't used this account for long. I played awhile back on an old device or whatever and didn't come back to the game for awhile, but I really enjoy it. Less early game RNG than other games and I feel that makes the experience a lot healthier.
 

Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
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So I've really gotten into Shadowverse this past week and I've hit the rank of A2 (I think I'm close to Master) just this evening. I started off with DEing most things to craft a decent midrange Swordcraft, and I unpacked a couple Darias so I decided I should craft that cancer deck too, but after a night of Take Two with Acklow I realized all I want to do is play big dragons so I DE'd most of my collection to craft this monster:



The far right card is 3x Bahamut (my baby). I lose 100% of the time to control Shadowcraft, Mordaci is just such a kick in the teeth to this deck. Though it is possible to win if you set up a Forte Urd Urd combo with your Wyvern. Honestly this deck is pretty great, having a positive win-rate against everything but Havencraft (which honestly is 50/50) and the aforementioned Shadowcraft. It's an expensive deck and has bad matchups but if you just want to play big shit and control the board it's totally worth trying.

Also masturbatory image:
 

Bedschibaer

NAME = FUCK
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Yeah honestly fuck blood aggro. Streamline aggro decks à RDW being the dominant deck usually leads to dumb and boring metas.

The Daria deck is overhyped. I crafted it and tweaked it around alot and it just bricks so hard at times it's ridiculous. I just can't get it to perform consistently. Sure you have your bonkers turns of Levi (who is a little too good on his own) evolve + Piercing rune for a total of 11 damage divided on leader and followers or you play daria on turn 6 after emptying your hand, etc. If you get those the deck almost autowins, otherwise you have a pretty subpar midrange deck. Maybe it still needs some added consistency, it's a fun deck that often enough loses to itself. I tend to only run it for dailies now.

Playing Elana haven rn with the exact same configuration as before the expansion since that has good win percentages for me. With shadow being popular and having some game against bats as a control deck I can recommend it for laddering.
 
Aladyyn Mulligan and any other Eternal players I'm Ghostwheel+7861 if you guys want to add me.

Looking forward to making new decks for the new season, I have dust for 10 legends so I may finally not have to use the shitty RG aggro deck that got me master last season.
 
Bought 5 legends for a Shimmerpack deck today and I'm having fun with it especially since there isn't a lot of aggro on ladder. I keep seeing that same Feln control deck or variants that add torches and this isn't doing too badly against it so I'm climbing quickly for the beginning of the season.
 
Shimmerpack variants are everywhere in my experience. I have a couple Ruins in my TorchFeln so that makes the matchup slightly better for me but whenever I run into a bunch I just switch to Icaria Blue, which is a much better matchup, unless they get 2 Obelisks and 3 Scouting Parties like one of my last opponents...

Seriously tho fuck Obelisk, that card is just unreasonable imo.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Fuck aggro bloodcraft players. Really.

No really.

Seriously though, I finally made it to A ranking and I'm super proud of myself atm. A lot of opponents tend to run meta decks at this ranking, mostly stuff you find off the Gamepress site associated with this game. I've found myself doing quite well with Control Sword as of late as well as Earth Rite (though I've always been a fan of Earth Rite). Also if you are a Hearthstone player and you are tired of the meta or if you want to try something new as far as card games go, I seriously recommend this game. There's something about the gameplay that makes the experience of playing it very enjoyable. Although there always will be netdecking, homebrew decks tend to fair just as well on ladder and I've seen my fair share of those climbing up. There's just such a wide card pool and variety of viable strategies that the game is just overall fun.
 

Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
i've become readdicted to mtg so that's a thing

currently running a red/black vampire deck in standard and it's an absolute blast to play

question for people who know the answer: is mtg online worth it? i was gonna look into it but i'm not sure i wanna blow $10 on a game i can already play irl
 

Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
i've become readdicted to mtg so that's a thing

currently running a red/black vampire deck in standard and it's an absolute blast to play

question for people who know the answer: is mtg online worth it? i was gonna look into it but i'm not sure i wanna blow $10 on a game i can already play irl
Short answer:
No mtgo isn't worth it and it's considered a joke of a ccg by the community.
 
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Got Master today after not too much trouble and seeded 17. Looking forward to having the chance to enjoy the upper areas of this game instead of not having the time or cards to do anything during the season. Last month I had to do the whole climb in the last 2 days...
 

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