The Like/Hate Thread

[Ashe]

This is why Magic sucks ass:

I have Hostility, tap 7 Mountains for 6 damage, and that 6 damage is converted into 6 3/1 tokens with Haste. I attack with all of them toward my opponent's few cards with 5-ish Saprolings.

My opponent activates his card's ability, which allows his Saprolings to simultaneously block my attacks AND be devoured to super-power his card. My attacks are negated, despite being more than enough to wipe his cards out (and him, he had 4 Life), and his super-powered card destroys me next turn.

That doesn't make any logical sense. So cards can block and simultaneously be devoured? Magically? There exists a card that, whenever a card on its side of the field is destroyed, can simply be 'devoured'? Bullshit. That's dumb.

... Something is wrong here.

Please name the card that did all this.

However, to make a note, you should know that there have been some rule changes just recently to the main rules, first time in ten years. Previously, every single action used the "stack" as you might know. Ok, so this included combat damage. You could block with a 1/1 that can sac to do one to something, and what he could do was block a 2/2 creature, stack damage, then respond to that damage resolving by saccing to ping it for another one, thus killing it.

You can't do that now, but, if a creature gets blocked and the blocker gets removed after blocking, that other guy is still blocked. It won't be doing damage now (since it hasn't reached the damage step) but its already past the declare blockers step, and thus that is locked in. So if he blocks all your guys and then after that sacs all his for something, your guys are still blocked. HOWEVER if you have guys with trample and he pulls this shit, guess what? Since trample deals lethal damage to all blockers first and then rolls over to the opponent, and there isn't actually a guy standing there to soak up lethal damage, it all gets rolled onto the opponent.

Ah... Was the "devour" guy that green guy that's some type of ooze that costs 2G for a 2/2 with Devour 1 and Flash (can be played at instant speed, and as it comes into play you sac any number of creatures and this guy will come in with that many +1/+1 counters).

If so, he played that smart, but that's a horrible card. Then you should ask him why his red deck doesn't run Pyroclasm or Volcanic Fallout or something. He'd still drop that guy in respond to devour up his guys so its not a total loss, but you'd be able to then throw a single blocker into it each turn since that guy doesn't have Trample.

EDIT: By the way, if you decide that you do actually want to learn, download Magic Online sometime. I know that some people throw the copout that "its not real cards and thus fake" but its the exact same thing as throwing quarters into an arcade machine. You aren't buying "cards" so much as paying for time spent entertained. There's a lot more discussion based around all this though, and I mean a LOT, so I'm not going into all that, but I find that the cards themselves are much cheaper online than offline. And yeah, I get that you are mostly just wanting to screw around and beat him a bit at his own game. I'm only mentioning it so that I could play you step by step to show you some different aspects of it sometime. To avoid you buying an account, what I'd most likely do is have you use my second empty account for the duration of whatever we did, and I would try to throw something together and send it that way, something on even terms. But if so, it wouldn't be like immediate or anything, as my friend is borrowing a couple decks from me and has fallen out of communication for the last week or so, which is irritating me since I want to get some stuff back for some tournaments.

EDIT2: One additional thing. Here's a link to something that I consider my favorite format in the game, booster draft. Essentially 8 players have three packs each. You sit in a circle and each open one pack. Pick a card from that pack, pass the pack. Pick from the pack passed to you, then pass it on. Finish a pack, open the next one and pick, passing the opposite direction (left, then pack 2 is right, then p3 is left). Build a deck, throw in lands, single elim three rounds.

This link is LSV, Louis-Scott Vargas, one of the top Pros in the game right now. He's a great guy and (like almost any of the top magic players for tournies) uses Online to test for constructed events or to play limited (like booster drafts). Now, where I'm going with this is that he (free of charge) makes draft videos where he goes pick by pick over every step and thought process he uses while building a deck and then goes through the entire tourney playing with showing you when he'll use it and why. He also will tell you in advance "This guy is has 4 cards in hand and keeps dodging around keeping exactly two islands and another land open at all times. He's flashing me Cancel (a counterspell) basically, so we'll throw this guy out there instead to get him to- great, he blew it, now let's drop our actual threat." You'd be amazed how much someone gives away info of their hand. A friend of mine can literally just stop me and tell me every single card in my hand (and does this a lot, it really is the craziest thing) simply based on how I tap mana, which lands I tap, when I DO tap mana, and any pauses I make between actions. He wrote down the exact contents of my five card hand in a draft against him, and while I bluffed that he was wrong and did win, he was correct and called me on it at the end.

Anyways, here's the link, and each followup is linked at the bottom of the video. If you are interested, then awesome, this is a great method to give you an idea of how people might think ahead (you now know he has that guy, so if he's holding open that mana every turn and lots of guys, then you hold back something to block his guy's retaliation if he does drop it and swing at you next turn. Now you play around it and screw him over.)

http://strategy.channelfireball.com/vide...rt-1-of-2/