I dabbled in Jeskai Control for about a month before Aether Revolt. It is a good shell for Copycat (I played it - Jeskai Copycat - this past weekend at our LGS Gameday Event), however, it just didn't hold up like I wanted. If I was going to continue down that path, I would definitely put in some Whirler Virtuosos for 2 reasons: 1 for the Harnessed Lightning pump, and 2 for chump blocking Thopters to stall.

I saw the 4c version with Aetherworks Marvel, and it was very strong. I figured I'd give it a try as it implements the Whirlers, and Rogue Refiners. These work really well with Felidar Guardian blinking, and Saheeli copying. Not to mention, Aetherworks Marvel can be a game changer with enough Energy.

BG Constrictor is a great deck for sure. There were quite a few playing that deck. A strong synergy I saw was with a guy playing Drana LOM. If the constrictor was on the board, Drana would hit with first strike, then give all the remaining attackers a counter (and then another counter due to the constrictor) for regular combat damage. It was pretty sick.

That looks like my style of deck. I've always loved pumping creatures: Killer Bees, Atog, etc.

My favorite deck is a mill deck, but there just isn't a good one for standard right now. It's just so fun to watch your opponent drop their bombs in the graveyard (unless they are playing zombies, lol). Right now though, I'm just trying to win regardless of deck type.

Aetherworks Marvel is awesome and I think it was severely misplayed in Kaladesh. Trying to cheat in the big Eldrazi is such a boring and unreliable way to play, but just using it as a value machine like Collected Company can do great for your deck.

My BG constrictor deck has more of an energy subtheme. Drana is cool but I don't think I could find space for it. I've got 4 Longtusk Cubs and 4 Bristling Hydras. I love the Hydras, they're so good at dodging removal and they quickly grow into something that can't be easily blocked (and then obviously having a constrictor on the board just gives insane value for 3 energy).

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

What do you guys mean when you mention a deck going infinite?

With Saheeli Rai on the battlefield, play Felidar Guardian. Felidar Guardian allows you to "blink" another permant, i.e. exile it from play and instantly place a brand new copy of it in it's place. Therefore, a brand new Saheeli Rai. You then use Saheeli Rai's (-2) ability to copy a creature. Copy the Felidar Guardian. Now you have 2 Felidar Guardians. And when the copy enters the battlefield, you can blink Saheeli Rai again. Then make another Felidar Guardian... and on, and on... i.e., it goes infinite, there's nothing to stop the process other than the player stating "I make a trillion Felidar Guardians".

It can happen in reverse as well with Felidar Guardian being on the battlefield first, then playing Saheeli Rai and using her (-2) abilty to start the combo.

Simply put assuming you play Saheeli Rai first (again, it works either way):

1. Play Saheeli Rai
2. Play Felidar Guardian, blink Saheeli Rai
3. Use the "new" Saheeli Rai's (-2) ability to copy Felidar Guardian
4. When the copy Felidar Guardian enters the battlefield, blink Saheeli Rai
5. Continue this process infinitely

Oh... and due to Saheeli Rai's (-2) ability, all of the Felidar Guardians have haste and can attack immediately.

Edit: I said there is nothing to stop the process... that isn't entirely true as there are ways to halt the combo. However, I was stating it with regards to the question of what does going infinite mean.

Saheeli Rai (resized).jpg
Felidar Guardian (resized).jpg

To the original poster, I got back in a few years ago. In looking back and looking at the giant pile of mostly useless cards that I don't know what to do with right now, a few things...

First, get an app for your phone to build decks with. I ended up with Decked Builder for the Android, and it's great.

Then, excepting when you want to draft or something like that, buy the individual cards instead of buying much of anything else.

I have constructed a total of about 10 different decks that I play with. Almost all were constructed by me buying the individual cards anyway, and going that route. I also stupidly bought a couple boxes of most of the sets coming out, even though I don't play in Standard because I rarely get time to play out. While I really enjoy cracking packs and trying to assemble full sets out of them, you need to open up SO much product to get a set, and it's MUCH cheaper to just buy a set a couple years later if that is really what you want.

If I would have followed my own advice, I think I'd have a couple more sweet decks that were done, and a hell of a lot less cards, which is fine because I basically just use the 10 or so decks to play with anyway. You can mess around in the apps just as much if not more than real life (since no card shop will have every card) and it's fun to virtually play decks.

Having said that, I do enjoy the collectible aspect of it and have managed to obtain the majority of the regular sets that have come out now.

Oh yeah, and play in pre-releases whenever you can. I think it's the most "pure" way of playing, and it's definitely worth the cost of admission.

Maffewl gave a great example of exactly how it works in the Saheeli deck, although the term going infinite in general just means some sort of combo where you produce an infinite amount of something, effectively forcing that you win the game (ex. an infinite amount of life, an infinite amount of creatures, etc.)

I assume most tournaments have rules against infinite combos. It's a neat combination of rules but I remember certain cards being illegal in tourneys because they were game breakers.

In Standard, they (Wizards of the Coast) can ban certain cards that they feel skew the game. They most recently did this with three cards - Emrakul the Promised End, Smuggler's Copter, and Reflector Mage. Currently, the Saheeli infinite combo is legal. As mentioned, there are plenty of ways to deal with it.

I just sold a Mana Vault masterpiece on eBay. They look gorgeous.

Have you tried playing Heartstone? It keeps me from playing MTG and scratches that CCG itch pretty well without me having to collect, store and purchase cards.

Believe me, MTG > Hearthstone (and I started playing MTG back in 1994!) but the time/cost factor is why I am enjoying Hearthstone.

Infinite combos are fine in tournaments unless they're just too unstoppable, in which case cards will get banned.

For the most part any infinite deck is just as balanced as a deck that uses normal win conditions though (of course there's always exceptions, like the Splinter Twin, which is now banned in Modern).

I love all the attention to detail that goes into Hearthstone through the speech and animation. The constructed play has never interested me though, abyt I do enjoy the Arena which is without a doubt the most affordable and accessible way to play limited in any CCG.

Does it require a specific deck to be built against it?

Sorry if these are newb questions. I played a little planeswalkers on PS3 but I didn't enjoy it as much

No. But you do need a way to destroy the creature or the planeswalker. Sorceries can remove single pieces before the infinite combo is active. Instant spells can destroy the infinite combo as it is being activated.

I'm not familiar with specific instant creature destruction, damage cards (Redirect from owner to planeswalker) or planeswalker destruction cards in Standard, but the process to interrupt the infinite loop would be similar for any of them.

Here is an example. (based on my understanding of current magic rulings)

Guardian comes into play and targets Saheeli.
Saheeli "blinks" and comes back into play.
Sahelli affect is then activated for "-2" and the target is the guardian.
In response to targeting the guardian, a player can instantly destroy Saheeli by using a direct damage spell that deals damage to player, but redirects to Saheeli. This spell can be 1+ damage since the "-2" was paid as part of the activation cost and it only takes 1 damage to destroy Saheeli.
So Saheeli goes to graveyard.
Then the copy of the Guardian comes into play and it may now target another permanent. Since Saheeli is no longer on the battlefield, the infinite loop is broken.

This process will also work by eliminating the Guardian when Saheeli targets it the first time. Saheeli's affect will fizzle when it attempts to resolve since the player no longer has control of the Guardian. This approach would be necessary if Saheeli grew too large to deal with direct damage spells.

At least, this is how I understand the rules for breaking the combo.

Marcus

Correct. Any spell that will kill Saheeli at instant speed (ex. Shock, costs R and deals 2 damage to target creature or player), or a spell that kills a creature (ex. Grasp of Darkness, which costs BB and gives a creature -4/-4), will destroy one of the targets before the "copy" ability resolves, and thus causing it to have nothing left to copy.

Over the weekend, I turned my friend on to Terraria and he really dug it!

In return, he turned me on to my latest addiction: Elements. It's a completely free to play online CCG for people who love MTG, but wish there wasn't all that ridiculous blocking to deal with, and if the game added another 10 sources of mana. It's great fun, check it out!

Anyone following along with the Modern Masters 2017 spoilers?

Well, Tarmagoyf is back... ugh.

Wizards won't rest until Goyfs are $60.

Really my biggest problem with this set is the fact that I was only able to get 4 boxes for my store. I was planning on doing lots of special offers and having a big draft, but considering I'll have effectively no supply I had to get rid of all that.

Still have two Sealed booster boxes of Tempest. Use to buy booster boxes and the flea market. Started back around 3rd Edition/The Dark stopped Merciadian Mask trilogy. Still have 1000's of cards. I think I only sold 4 Mox Diamonds and Sliver Queens from Tempest. Some Alliances uncommons fetch some serious scratch...Force of Will I am looking at you.

Interested in selling? If so how much for the pair?

Force of Will isn't super crazy anymore thanks to Eternal Masters, but still really nice for an uncommon.

That's what I've heard

I'm sure it'll be like Tarmogofy and show up in the next several Eternal Masters sets, so there will probably be a steady decline in prices over time.

Although foil force of will and cheap still should never belong in the same sentence :p

Argh! I'd been out of MTG for years, but the new Amonkhet set has really sweet artwork... Gotta catch 'em all

I'm big into Egyptian history, so I'm pretty pissed they just now decided to go there!

Ha that has always been the dream since around Legends. We used to hope some unaware mom & pop shop had some boxes laying around in the basement unaware how valuable they were Dammit never found one but it has to true somewhere!!!

EDIT: Almost done selling min eon Ebay...wow now I see why everyone hates the devil ebay/paypal connection; ouch they take a bite

Damn I am old. I remember a local store putting up a $50 sale for Dark Booster Box back in the late 90s because packs were not selling.
Also remember the $79 Revised Boxes. Same shop would open a box of Revised on a Tuesday and put rares into a binder. Any rare, $3. no limit. Any uncommon $1. Any common $0.10. Man those were a great time to be a magic player.

But we were college kids with a budget, so very few spent more than $12-15.

I remember being so psyched to get Shivan Dragon for $3.

Good times.

Marcus

The Dark is where printing went up and prices went down. Anything before that (Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends) is worth toooons of money, with Arabian Nights leading the charge at well over $10k.

As far as Alpha/Beta/Unlimited goes, I'm not sure how much they would even sell for, I've never seen full boxes for sale.

Also don't buy Fallen Empires or Homelands, even though they're cheap vintage boxes, they're pretty worthless, and the only way you could profit off them would be to sell the packs individually at a retail store (which would take a long time since those packs barely sell).

If you guys like deck building games, check out the digital version of Ascension. Even playing field, don't have to pay to have a better deck than opponent, players start with same cards and choose cards from the same pool. Cool game with lots of online leagues and tournaments.

+1 for Ascension on the iPad/iPhone. Also the living card game version of Netrunner is pretty cool. I still have the old CCG sets of OG Netrunner and Proteus in a binder somewhere around here. World Domination muahaha

Back to MTG though, I just have one booster box of Amonkhet but want the entire set. Any guesses at how much I'm going to have to pay to score what isn't in the booster box?

Around 2002 I bought a few clearance cases of Netrunner starter boxes off ePay for $50 each. Sadly, opened them ALL for the 2 random rare's in each deck. So, so, many extra commons lol. Kinda wish I'd kept some of the starter decks sealed.

Which edition? I have a HP Revised you can have for free if you like