Blue/Black is atrocious (so are many other starter decks)

[qtquazar]

I'm a veteran Magic player, dating to Rev3. Not world class by any stretch, but I understand the game on a fairly solid level.

Excuse my profanity, but if you ate 10 boosters and s*** out the results, you'd end up with a better deck than the blue/black one.

The gripes in the forums are completely legit... whoever built some of these decks appears to have managed the near impossible feat of not only not understanding how the colors synchronize, but also not understanding how either of the two colors work on their own. They are seriously THAT BAD.

[LoVe)Ly]

The descriptions are also completely misleading. I went with G/R to start because the description led me to believe that there would be land ramp cards. Besides missing that, there weren't particularly strong creatures, and the red part had limited DD. And no elf or goblin synergy. So, what was the point of a G/R deck? It seems to be just a mix of the very worst green and red cards available.

It made the first hour of the game pretty boring until I could switch colours.

[Flea the Magician]

Glad that wasn't just me then. I'm a new-ish magic player and expected much more from a deck advertised as destroying foes and interrupting the plans. I've done more of that with Black/White..

[qtquazar]

G/R was the one I tried right before blue/black. It was pretty atrocious as well.

The battle with the angel is ridiculous--she's holding a well ramped deck with creatures in three power tiers (flying angels, no less), where on top of that, EVERYTHING provides bonus life... allowing ample time for her to stall the match. Meanwhile, most of the starter decks leave you with nothing to counter with and a slower creature play profile. Utter nonsense. Instead of outplaying the other player, yuo're basically reduced to praying you have exactly what you need and she miraculously gets land-jammed early on.

[sara_bear]

Dude you didn't start tweeking the crap starter deck with your first won booster? That the impatus of the crap deck. The want to teach players how to tweek a deck, how to build a deck, and basic deck mechanics.

Yes it's kind stupid to any of us who have been playing since Revised.

And yes I'm super irked that Gareth gets true dual lands, but I can't.

[Yondar]

Originally posted by sara_bear:

Dude you didn't start tweeking the crap starter deck with your first won booster? That the impatus of the crap deck. The want to teach players how to tweek a deck, how to build a deck, and basic deck mechanics.

This. It's kind of funny some people don't realize that there's a reason their starting deck is crappy. You don't start with a Big F-king Gun in shooters either, ever wonder why?

[Thulsa Doom]

I did start with dimir colors. It was a bit frustrating in the beginning but if you play magic since rev 3 you should be able to win anything after few tries. If you are begginer than you are in some deep ♥♥♥♥. I quickly switched to mono black after few games and after that to almighty boros. White and red cars are ridiculously overpowerd in this edition.

[qtquazar]

Please don't treat me like an idiot, Yondar--if I've played off and on over 20 years, I probably know how to tweak a deck, let alone build from scratch. I was tweaking on my first booster.

It doesn't matter with blue/black--or most of the starters. For blue/black you're basically resorting to your lone blue flying creature because NOTHING else is useful. Counters/returns aren't useful for blue unless you have a lot of them and a mana advantage AND a means of really whacking your opponent when you need to. A blue/black i salmost always built around the blue feeding into or setting up the black. In this game you don't even have a viable mono in blue or black at the start--blue has virtually no offense and black costs too much for too little power (5 mana to kill something? for BLACK?).

A few boosters in, your best chance is actually to run a limited green deck (maybe white if you're drawing well) as it has enough tricks to fluke a win. MEB is accurate that white and red overpower when the good cards start rolling in--that much is obvious already. White/Green/Red also looks positively nasty (like the single G for a potential 3/3) with the right lands in play (early sustained offense/defense, which tides until your legends are ready).

And it's not the limitations of your deck that angers me the most--it's that you're playing a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ deck against WELL-TUNED decks. Even the very first computer Magic game didn't make that mistake--decks were themed but not overpoweringly so, and there was a degree of pacing that accompanied your deck-building.

In other words--nobody walks into a booster tournament expecting to play against established decks--you expect to play other booster decks, some of which may be better than yours and which you have to outsmart or outplay... not 'play enought times' that you luck out and win. That is the CRUCIAL failure of this entire game--either you give the player powerful options early to tune their deck and build something creative, while not all-powerful, to face off against well-tuned theme decks--or you start the player at effectively scratch but limit the opponents to a reasonable range of the player's current state.

This is often like being back in Rev3 as a beginner and staring down the barrel of an Icy Manipulator/Time Twister combo and realizing you're a few hundred dollars behind in the poker game and are trying to hit an inside straight on the river. Sure, it might happen, but odds are against you and you're not playing on skill.

[oktchau]

I've chosen the black and blue deck and played on the hardest setting from the beggining. The deck is really bad but I've managed to reach Jace without much problems. Then I had to do something that I despise, which is adjusting the deck just to counter his.

On Storm the Castle things really broke. It is almost impossible to beat it in a fair fight, and I resorted to cheating: set to the easiest difficulty, built a new red/black/green deck full of the red satyr and spells to boost him, restarted the duel until I've drawn the perfect hand.
Disgusting.

Let's see how fair the next duels are going to be, but I'm really not impressed.

[*****ed Hams]

I went red blue and had no issues, didnt change deck the whole game. Some match ups are hard but I found it a good combo

[sara_bear]

Originally posted by qtquazar:

This is often like being back in Rev3 as a beginner and staring down the barrel of an Icy Manipulator/Time Twister combo and realizing you're a few hundred dollars behind in the poker game and are trying to hit an inside straight on the river. Sure, it might happen, but odds are against you and you're not playing on skill.

Oh those were the days.

As an aside IF anyone is wondering which is the best nontweeked deck from the start. It's the Red/Black Deck, 30% chance to win. Red has ALWAYS been a strong "I have few cards to play with" color to play with. And they give you a few vampires to play with for the Black.

[Meanguns]

I started with blue black.. it was a bit difficult at 1st... but I enjoyed the challenge since I am a vet to the game... once I started tweaking the deck it got easier.. I think it took me about 4 or 5 tries to beat avacyn...

[Kobold-kun]

Originally posted by Yondar:

Originally posted by sara_bear:

Dude you didn't start tweeking the crap starter deck with your first won booster? That the impatus of the crap deck. The want to teach players how to tweek a deck, how to build a deck, and basic deck mechanics.

This. It's kind of funny some people don't realize that there's a reason their starting deck is crappy. You don't start with a Big F-king Gun in shooters either, ever wonder why?

Yes, but the fact you still get crappy cards throught the game and very few to build a decent deck from scrap is also a problem, I've been playing with the starter deck, unchanged through most of the campaign because I can't switch it!

[sara_bear]

Originally posted by Tundra:

Originally posted by Yondar:

This. It's kind of funny some people don't realize that there's a reason their starting deck is crappy. You don't start with a Big F-king Gun in shooters either, ever wonder why?

Yes, but the fact you still get crappy cards throught the game and very few to build a decent deck from scrap is also a problem, I've been playing with the starter deck, unchanged through most of the campaign because I can't switch it!

Do you not know how?

[qtquazar]

Interesting. Finished the main and add-on campaign... I like where some of the rules have gone for Magic now (being an old-school player), but the balance of the cards to this set seems questionable.

-White. The old white-weenie rush is as viable (and annoying) as ever. Exalted is nasty. Same vulnerability as always--lack of flying unless you're using angels. Same strengths as ever. 3 lands down and you can already be in serious trouble facing white. Fewer boards clearers (aside from that one black -1/-1 for each swamp means option to delay white are even MORE limited than before. As usual, with white, you're committed to whatever startegiy/sub-strategies you've built your deck on--low versatiltiy but can wreck players fast. Even more life-giving than i recall.

-Red has less blasting tools than before--heavier creature threat/pump creature focus. Severe problems against white if the balance tips too soon/draw wrong cards. Red stil very versatile/powerful against other colours. Blue seems like less of a viable counter. Mana flare is sorely missed.

-Green retains its traditional value vs. cost. Land-generating options def. slower than before... too long to get to hurt with the biggies, but early-mid like centaurs have become a much more serious rapid threat, no longer needing to be suprise boosted by add-ons like Giant Growth.

-Blue is worthless on its own. Still heavy technique, but no longer any really good 'screw you' cards like Tim (Prodigal Sorceror) that can cause people to second-guess their strategy. Options at hand are far too predictable to an opponent. Blue always needed a pretty wide awareness of all viable cards as well as artifact support--and artifacts here are pathetic with the new 'equipment focus'.

-Black: Remains the most traditional of the decks. Strong start/strong late, decent options to tide through. Not much in the middle. Hard to kill, appropriately. Plays the same as always.

-Enchantments: Are these still part of the game? You'd barely know it. Instants/Interrupts 9I guess there are no more interrupts) seem severely reduced as well. There are fewer 'surprises' than old Magic.

-Artifacts: Rendered almost useless now. Might supplement specific strategy decks but good all-arounders are increasingly rare. That seems to be the focus of the 'equipment' idea--which is cool in principle but seems very impractical in practice (very few of the opponent decks bother with anything other than life-boosters).

Overall--good entry point for beginners (if the core game didn't have so many issues) but hardly seems representative of the true depth of a good magic game.