I like Underdog to be as you said, an event where you play with least played tribes and don't battle against the best tribes.
About your question maybe I don't understand or I am confused about how an Underdog tribe becomes "Major League", but doesnt happen that every time an Underdog tribe win an Underdog event become "Major League"?
Anyway, I like Rex suggestion about reseting totals, could be a good option.
A lot depends on what we want Underdog to be: Is it a refuge from ubiquitous tribes? A place where unsung heroes can shine? The three criteria as they are will trend over time towards matching the endangered list, since just playing an unpopular tribe will remove it from the list in short order, winning with one purges it from unhallowed, but only Wizards can alter the contents of the Endangered list. However, that 'over time' is considerably long. If every single Underdog event is won by an unhallowed at risk of dropping out of the event, presuming they lose unpopular in the process in the two cases where that's a thing, it will take us more than half a year to get to the point where 'unhallowed' no longer has separate relevance.
Anyone like to give me odds on every single underdog event for the next half year being won by unhallowed decks at risk of dropping out of contention?
Interesting discussion, I wanted to add a few observations.
1. I don't think you can actually just slap 4 FoW, 4 Wasteland, 4 Vial into any ol' blue tribal deck and have success. For one thing, those decks have a natural predator that's present in significant numbers every week: mono-red aggro decks. My big huge expensive Fae deck (that didn't run FoW) very nearly lost round 1 to mono-red that week, and on previous attempts DID lose to quick aggro. But aside from that, especially with Vial around, you also need the tribe to cooperate in terms of mana costs, they can't be too spread out. Illusions have always been one of the better options for this, and slug360 had already "won" with them in the Invitational semi-final round so this shouldn't have been a surprise. The tribe is very strong, and easily outperforms something like Metathran or Cephalids slapped into the same shell of support cards.
2. The price section has always gone out of its way to praise people who did well with inexpensive decks. Kuma even poked fun at me last week, calling me the "Fool King" compared to the "Wise Kings" who did the most with fewer resources. I always assumed people enjoyed that section just as a bit of trivia, but whenever an expensive deck would win there would be the urge to sort of apologize for it, which shouldn't be necessary. There are ten billion PREs for budget formats every week, if people want to exclude every card that costs more than a pint of milk they have plenty of places to go for that.
If people could, in fact, slap any old tribe into a shell of 16 expensive support cards and win with it, perhaps it could be argued that certain cards make the event monotonous. But I don't think history shows that to be true. If any set of 16 support cards can be accused of having that effect, it would be something like 4x StP, 4x PtE, 4x other removal/disruption, 3-4 equipment/swords, which is often boring but highly effective, and in the grand scheme of things not ludicrously expensive. There's also the combination of any random fattie tribe with the cookie-cutter reanimation package, which has grown rather stale, but again the results show it isn't overwhelming the field and isn't particuarly expensive either (the tribal creatures might actually be more pricey in that deck.)
3. I would suggest a couple different options about all these sub-categories of tribes: how about the day after next year's Invitational, we do an "almost-total" reset on all the statistics for tribal success and popularity? We could go ahead and begin with Human, Goblin, Wizard and Elf in the Big Shots, and hand-pick some of the more obvious tribes to be banned from Underdog. Or we could "raise the bar" a little at that time, so that it takes 2 or 3 wins to fall out of "unhallowed" and 7 appearances to fall out of "unpopular". As the event continues, I do think you have to either raise the numbers or reset the totals, because a year or two down the road (assuming you're still doing this, or your successor keeps the running totals going) you'll have Underdog being exactly like old Endangered and a ton more tribes in the Big Shots club than likely you envisioned initially.
Fair enough. I don't see a problem: If a tribe wins, it has won. It has earned its place in not being in the underdog event if it hits the other criteria. Underdog is once a month: So long as it isn't a big shot tribe, you can still play that deck in two out of the four events. If the tribe has more than 20 members (Or more than 11 if you don't mind being up to 45% changeling) then you can try and replace most of it with analogues and run it in Singleton for three out of four events.
Let's extrapolate. Which tribes are on the unhallowed list but not on the endangered list?
Beast - Constant presence just about every block, major tribe in a tribal block, support in all rarities including mythic.
Drake - Presence in most blocks, has support cards that produce tribal tokens. Currently unpopular.
Insect - Support in all rarities including mythic, presence in most blocks, has support cards that mention the tribe by name or produce tribal tokens.
Ogre - significant tribe in a tribal subtheme block, presence at most rarities, has support cards that mention the tribe by name or produce tribal tokens, enough legends to build an entirely legendary subtribal.
Shapeshifter - Houston, we have a problem. all rarities, significant tribe in a tribal block, presence in most sets... And enables every <3 tribe to appear in the event at all. If there's grounds for an exception this is it: Even then, I'd suggest we have the exception be "No 'shapeshifter' tribal can have more than sixteen shapeshifters."
Spellshaper - Tied to a mechanic, which was a major block theme. Showed up in multiple blocks. Enough legends to build an entirely legendary subtribal. Currently unpopular.
Wurm - Constant presence just about every block, support in all rarities including mythic, enough mythics to build an entirely mythic subtribal.
Since everything else is endangered, these seven are the only tribes that it would be possible to win their way out of the event, barring a tribe getting a major upgrade to 'Block tribal theme or subtheme'. With the exception of the Shapeshifter caveat I can see a case being made for all of them being allowed to do so under the current criteria. Each of them in their own way is big enough or powerful enough to be successful, and as such once they prove that they are capable of succeeding should be pulled out of the kiddie pool.
As an aside, Zubera and Yeti are missing from the 'endangered' list.
I think the subject here is to try and reach a solution about the tribes that win an Underdog event and therefore under the actual rules they become part of the "Majoe League" tribes and can no longer play in the Underdog events.
What about making it so they have to win 3 or more times to become part of the "Major League", or maybe find a way to downgrade tribes from the "Major League" to the underdog, like the least played ones or the ones with the worst records. Another option could be to close the "Major League" list of tribes or just let it be until all the tribes are "Major League" tribes...
A survey with the possible changes or whatever could be a good idea too.
Also, the Solitary Confinement is really only for beating Affinity and sometimes Stax. They have so few removal spells in Game 1 that Zur should be able to go all the way with Solitary-Snake Umbra. After board, I can bring in Shielding Plax and Phyrexian Arena to complement Snake Umbra if that feels like the right package for winning. For BWG Hate, the Screams from Within is a really insane beating given how the rules for auras entering the battlefield work.
Lots of cool decks. I also really like Bazaar's, Stank, Uvatha's, Bactgudz', and ilsken's. I cannot figure out why the guy running Lands isn't playing Manabonds and Dust Bowl.
Do you recognize that that was a question, right? Which is different from a statement. And immediately after I started talking about the Insect.
Illusion is currently in the ban filter for Underdog, has been there since 5 minutes after the end of that event, and if you so much fear that they won't be there, for whatever reason, I assure you, they will be there. End of story.
And FOW+Wasteland make ANY deck's remaining price look irrelevant, whatever the tribe, the strategy, the success of the deck (in fact they don't guarantee pretty much anything).
Evaluating a tribe based on the expensive support cards they might or might not feature is preposterous. Thinking I was doing it is, sincerely, offensive. As is demonizing people because they play money cards. As far as you know, they own a FOW set but they don't own a car, or an expensive PC, or whatever else leisure money can buy. It's their right to choose how to spend their money, and where to seek a little joy in this life. It's not your call. You have your ideas, they have theirs. So I'll say once more: let's stop demonizing people who did nothing wrong only because they don't share our ideas (this applies to other people's deckbuilding choices as well). Intolerance will not be tolerated, paradox be damned.
If the price section is seen as a way to seriously point fingers, I will stop doing it. A good-natured joke is one thing; to actively incite intolerance is another. I won't be part of that.
I know for a fact that some of those people listed in the over-$500 list haven't put a single dollar in the game in forever. If they ended with great collections is only because they earned them by writing, trading, winning prizes, hosting PREs. Through hard work and talent, not some rich boy attitude. They earned the cards, they earned the right to play them as they please.
Btw, it wasn't the support cards. It was that slug is a good player, he had favorable matchups, his opponents made more mistakes than he did, and his draws were better than theirs. This is 90% of what it was, as, at the end of the day, always is. I ended 1-6 with the exact same deck with which I ended 8-2 a few months ago. Same deck, same pilot, different circumstances.
"This brings us a dilemma, though: is it right to exclude Illusion, a tribe that's not that small (73 members online), has been played enough (14 times) and has now won 1 event, from the Underdog crowd? I mean, it fits the criteria, but if you look at the other 39 tribes in the "Major League" (the tribes that can't be played in Underdog events), Illusion doesn't really feel at home."
There really isn't a dilemma here. Saying that there is is holding up illusions as an exception. They shouldn't be, it's a really good and powerful tribe with some impressive tribal support. I could not work out why you were seeing them as weaker than the other Major League entrants.
The major glaring beacon of more than $700 worth of support for a $10 tribe playing for a $4 prize seemed the most likely reason for this to be brought up, with the implication being 'Illusions don't seem worthy of Major League status, so it must be the support cards'. With this reasoning, I asked if this was the case. (Extemporising with wallet-slapping perhaps wasn't helpful, but it seemed a natural fit given that this event's top two both jumped right into the top 5 of the most expensive Tribal Apocalypse decks since records began.)
Bazaar: there aren't 26 Illusions in that deck. Look closer.
AJ: I don't understand where your vehement response comes from. Did I say that Illusions, and specifically Illusions, should be granted an exception? No, I didn't say anything of the sort. I raised a question about a quite serious issue: over time, inevitably, Underdog will lose those members that aren't Endangered and have been played enough, only in virtue of a single win. If Insect, like we wish, will get there some day, they will be banned from the event where they most belong and have a chance to compete. This is clearly wrong. The Underdog criteria need periodic reassessment to keep their rank populated, but that could still not be enough for some tribes that might slip through the cracks of the system. A system that's been purposely created for those tribes, such as Insect or Drake or Shapeshifter, that didn't have access to Endangered but weren't strong enough to compete in Regular.
The Illusion win was just the trigger of this discussion, whether they are rightfully in the Major League now, or not.
I don't see how and why the money value of a specific deck could or should have a role in all this.
Speaking of Insect, thanks for the offer AJ, but I was working towards the previous offer by slug360 himself, who expressed interest in the Insect discussion in these comments a few weeks ago. He just confirmed he'll replace Rex (or will join him, if Rex will still find time to contribute at any point) on the Insect side of things. Of course, the Insect discussion doesn't need to be a weekly feature: at some point, it'll be just a matter of report results and discuss new avenues, and that very likely will coincide to the articles following Pure and Underdog events.
I am not sure that greed IS good nor that power cards are all fine but that is a very subjective judgment no matter who the judge. We shouldn't be picking on one subset of cards just because it is a wealthy player only set. (the Aether Vial/FoW/Cryptic/Mutavault/Wasteland/Ooo look at me I can slap you in the face with my wallet set that is.) If you want that then run heirloom tribal events.
Illusions are extremely good and that no one previously proved that during the Blippian era might have more to do with the general anti-control feel of the tourney. With super aggro decks running supreme, control has to struggle even with awesome tribes like Illusions. When the aggro tribes are merely aggro, they lose to such power.
It is best to follow the precedents set by the previous events rather than change rules that are inconvenient just because we don't want to deal with the consequences. Illusions (finally) earned their status.
Frankly, a rule not upheld weakens all the others. Illusions are plenty powerful and won quite a few events pre-Kumagoran/Blippian eras. I see no grounds for an exception here. It's a good tribe. Are you trying to pin the victory on the Aether Vial/FoW/Cryptic/Mutavault/Wasteland/Ooo look at me I can slap you in the face with my wallet? Because whilst people would despise playing against those cards, the general rule of your reign has been that greed is good, and absolute power cards are perfectly fine.
If you want strong evidence that Illusions is powerful enough for the big time, consider not merely the win but the fact that it was done with 26 illusions. I assume this was done intentionally for power reasons, but even if chosen to save time and/or expense, the fact that he used six beyond the minimum evinces the depth of the tribe.
The Mono-White Hate deck is from the LCV tournaments in Spain. I'm also playing basically the same deck. (Needless to say, I was surprised when I saw someone else bring it.) I can't speak for albertorodalv, but I kept all 4 Cages in the MD because I was expecting a large amount of Oath of Druids decks and Gush/Pyromancer decks using Yawgmoth's Will. Of course, there ended up being 1 Oath deck and 2 Pyromancer decks, so in hindsight I probably would have moved 1 Cage and 1 Stony (I also expected more Affinity) to the board and brought in 2 Paths maindeck.
As for lands, I assume Waste and Strip are locks (they should be) and while Cavern and Ghost Quarter are definitely playable, I'm actually interested in Port. It's a good card that sees hardly any play; I'd be interested to see what you guys can do with it.
I didn't know that, that's unfortunate, we'll already have reduced attendance due to the Duel Week nature.
We could start 2 hours earlier, but wouldn't that cut the American players out of the event?
Next week, will we play at our usual hour? There will be also Blippy's annual Modern tournament (Modern's Second: A Birthday Bash) 1 hour later after we start.
"Pauper players, led by clan Team DB, have banned together to create a informal 'Magic Online Pauper Players Championship.'"
It seems like the not so subtle message here is that instead of "Doing Battle with Commons" just "Don't Bother", until Temporal Fissure is "banned". Players should "band" together to make this happen. A second season will not happen until the format changes.
Team DB = Team DBC
banned = banded
Thank you Peter for nearly delivering the message correctly. I am thanking you, not blaming you and just making light of the mistake.
Thank you as well, for your comments about Melissa and the Community Cup. It was nice to see that deluxeicoff (a formerly prolific Pauper writer) removed his negative comments from his Facebook page. Magic players insist on complaining about everything (like small errors in articles), and I certainly agree with you. The reality is she is a judge, a writer and clearly a solid player. She deserves to attend more than the majority of the people who were invited and not invited. It is pathetic that players have to make an issue out of and try to diminish what is clearly an honor.
It's really unfortunate that Wizards is killing the 4 tix phantom sealed. Even though it had terrible EV, it had better EV than the phantom events that they will offer now. I'm not likely to make an 8 dollar impulse phantom event decision. Hopefully Wizards will create phantom drafts again, and cost them at 4 tix.
I like Underdog to be as you said, an event where you play with least played tribes and don't battle against the best tribes.
About your question maybe I don't understand or I am confused about how an Underdog tribe becomes "Major League", but doesnt happen that every time an Underdog tribe win an Underdog event become "Major League"?
Anyway, I like Rex suggestion about reseting totals, could be a good option.
A lot depends on what we want Underdog to be: Is it a refuge from ubiquitous tribes? A place where unsung heroes can shine? The three criteria as they are will trend over time towards matching the endangered list, since just playing an unpopular tribe will remove it from the list in short order, winning with one purges it from unhallowed, but only Wizards can alter the contents of the Endangered list. However, that 'over time' is considerably long. If every single Underdog event is won by an unhallowed at risk of dropping out of the event, presuming they lose unpopular in the process in the two cases where that's a thing, it will take us more than half a year to get to the point where 'unhallowed' no longer has separate relevance.
Anyone like to give me odds on every single underdog event for the next half year being won by unhallowed decks at risk of dropping out of contention?
Interesting discussion, I wanted to add a few observations.
1. I don't think you can actually just slap 4 FoW, 4 Wasteland, 4 Vial into any ol' blue tribal deck and have success. For one thing, those decks have a natural predator that's present in significant numbers every week: mono-red aggro decks. My big huge expensive Fae deck (that didn't run FoW) very nearly lost round 1 to mono-red that week, and on previous attempts DID lose to quick aggro. But aside from that, especially with Vial around, you also need the tribe to cooperate in terms of mana costs, they can't be too spread out. Illusions have always been one of the better options for this, and slug360 had already "won" with them in the Invitational semi-final round so this shouldn't have been a surprise. The tribe is very strong, and easily outperforms something like Metathran or Cephalids slapped into the same shell of support cards.
2. The price section has always gone out of its way to praise people who did well with inexpensive decks. Kuma even poked fun at me last week, calling me the "Fool King" compared to the "Wise Kings" who did the most with fewer resources. I always assumed people enjoyed that section just as a bit of trivia, but whenever an expensive deck would win there would be the urge to sort of apologize for it, which shouldn't be necessary. There are ten billion PREs for budget formats every week, if people want to exclude every card that costs more than a pint of milk they have plenty of places to go for that.
If people could, in fact, slap any old tribe into a shell of 16 expensive support cards and win with it, perhaps it could be argued that certain cards make the event monotonous. But I don't think history shows that to be true. If any set of 16 support cards can be accused of having that effect, it would be something like 4x StP, 4x PtE, 4x other removal/disruption, 3-4 equipment/swords, which is often boring but highly effective, and in the grand scheme of things not ludicrously expensive. There's also the combination of any random fattie tribe with the cookie-cutter reanimation package, which has grown rather stale, but again the results show it isn't overwhelming the field and isn't particuarly expensive either (the tribal creatures might actually be more pricey in that deck.)
3. I would suggest a couple different options about all these sub-categories of tribes: how about the day after next year's Invitational, we do an "almost-total" reset on all the statistics for tribal success and popularity? We could go ahead and begin with Human, Goblin, Wizard and Elf in the Big Shots, and hand-pick some of the more obvious tribes to be banned from Underdog. Or we could "raise the bar" a little at that time, so that it takes 2 or 3 wins to fall out of "unhallowed" and 7 appearances to fall out of "unpopular". As the event continues, I do think you have to either raise the numbers or reset the totals, because a year or two down the road (assuming you're still doing this, or your successor keeps the running totals going) you'll have Underdog being exactly like old Endangered and a ton more tribes in the Big Shots club than likely you envisioned initially.
Fair enough. I don't see a problem: If a tribe wins, it has won. It has earned its place in not being in the underdog event if it hits the other criteria. Underdog is once a month: So long as it isn't a big shot tribe, you can still play that deck in two out of the four events. If the tribe has more than 20 members (Or more than 11 if you don't mind being up to 45% changeling) then you can try and replace most of it with analogues and run it in Singleton for three out of four events.
Let's extrapolate. Which tribes are on the unhallowed list but not on the endangered list?
Beast - Constant presence just about every block, major tribe in a tribal block, support in all rarities including mythic.
Drake - Presence in most blocks, has support cards that produce tribal tokens. Currently unpopular.
Insect - Support in all rarities including mythic, presence in most blocks, has support cards that mention the tribe by name or produce tribal tokens.
Ogre - significant tribe in a tribal subtheme block, presence at most rarities, has support cards that mention the tribe by name or produce tribal tokens, enough legends to build an entirely legendary subtribal.
Shapeshifter - Houston, we have a problem. all rarities, significant tribe in a tribal block, presence in most sets... And enables every <3 tribe to appear in the event at all. If there's grounds for an exception this is it: Even then, I'd suggest we have the exception be "No 'shapeshifter' tribal can have more than sixteen shapeshifters."
Spellshaper - Tied to a mechanic, which was a major block theme. Showed up in multiple blocks. Enough legends to build an entirely legendary subtribal. Currently unpopular.
Wurm - Constant presence just about every block, support in all rarities including mythic, enough mythics to build an entirely mythic subtribal.
Since everything else is endangered, these seven are the only tribes that it would be possible to win their way out of the event, barring a tribe getting a major upgrade to 'Block tribal theme or subtheme'. With the exception of the Shapeshifter caveat I can see a case being made for all of them being allowed to do so under the current criteria. Each of them in their own way is big enough or powerful enough to be successful, and as such once they prove that they are capable of succeeding should be pulled out of the kiddie pool.
As an aside, Zubera and Yeti are missing from the 'endangered' list.
I think the subject here is to try and reach a solution about the tribes that win an Underdog event and therefore under the actual rules they become part of the "Majoe League" tribes and can no longer play in the Underdog events.
What about making it so they have to win 3 or more times to become part of the "Major League", or maybe find a way to downgrade tribes from the "Major League" to the underdog, like the least played ones or the ones with the worst records. Another option could be to close the "Major League" list of tribes or just let it be until all the tribes are "Major League" tribes...
A survey with the possible changes or whatever could be a good idea too.
Oh yeah, and that gox guy beat me with that Legacy list in the DE; both games he Stifled key fetch activations and that was all she wrote.
You guys didn't mention Uvatha's deck: http://gatherling.com/deck.php?mode=view&id=13464 :)
Also, the Solitary Confinement is really only for beating Affinity and sometimes Stax. They have so few removal spells in Game 1 that Zur should be able to go all the way with Solitary-Snake Umbra. After board, I can bring in Shielding Plax and Phyrexian Arena to complement Snake Umbra if that feels like the right package for winning. For BWG Hate, the Screams from Within is a really insane beating given how the rules for auras entering the battlefield work.
Lots of cool decks. I also really like Bazaar's, Stank, Uvatha's, Bactgudz', and ilsken's. I cannot figure out why the guy running Lands isn't playing Manabonds and Dust Bowl.
Do you recognize that that was a question, right? Which is different from a statement. And immediately after I started talking about the Insect.
Illusion is currently in the ban filter for Underdog, has been there since 5 minutes after the end of that event, and if you so much fear that they won't be there, for whatever reason, I assure you, they will be there. End of story.
And FOW+Wasteland make ANY deck's remaining price look irrelevant, whatever the tribe, the strategy, the success of the deck (in fact they don't guarantee pretty much anything).
Evaluating a tribe based on the expensive support cards they might or might not feature is preposterous. Thinking I was doing it is, sincerely, offensive. As is demonizing people because they play money cards. As far as you know, they own a FOW set but they don't own a car, or an expensive PC, or whatever else leisure money can buy. It's their right to choose how to spend their money, and where to seek a little joy in this life. It's not your call. You have your ideas, they have theirs. So I'll say once more: let's stop demonizing people who did nothing wrong only because they don't share our ideas (this applies to other people's deckbuilding choices as well). Intolerance will not be tolerated, paradox be damned.
If the price section is seen as a way to seriously point fingers, I will stop doing it. A good-natured joke is one thing; to actively incite intolerance is another. I won't be part of that.
I know for a fact that some of those people listed in the over-$500 list haven't put a single dollar in the game in forever. If they ended with great collections is only because they earned them by writing, trading, winning prizes, hosting PREs. Through hard work and talent, not some rich boy attitude. They earned the cards, they earned the right to play them as they please.
Btw, it wasn't the support cards. It was that slug is a good player, he had favorable matchups, his opponents made more mistakes than he did, and his draws were better than theirs. This is 90% of what it was, as, at the end of the day, always is. I ended 1-6 with the exact same deck with which I ended 8-2 a few months ago. Same deck, same pilot, different circumstances.
"This brings us a dilemma, though: is it right to exclude Illusion, a tribe that's not that small (73 members online), has been played enough (14 times) and has now won 1 event, from the Underdog crowd? I mean, it fits the criteria, but if you look at the other 39 tribes in the "Major League" (the tribes that can't be played in Underdog events), Illusion doesn't really feel at home."
There really isn't a dilemma here. Saying that there is is holding up illusions as an exception. They shouldn't be, it's a really good and powerful tribe with some impressive tribal support. I could not work out why you were seeing them as weaker than the other Major League entrants.
The major glaring beacon of more than $700 worth of support for a $10 tribe playing for a $4 prize seemed the most likely reason for this to be brought up, with the implication being 'Illusions don't seem worthy of Major League status, so it must be the support cards'. With this reasoning, I asked if this was the case. (Extemporising with wallet-slapping perhaps wasn't helpful, but it seemed a natural fit given that this event's top two both jumped right into the top 5 of the most expensive Tribal Apocalypse decks since records began.)
Bazaar: there aren't 26 Illusions in that deck. Look closer.
AJ: I don't understand where your vehement response comes from. Did I say that Illusions, and specifically Illusions, should be granted an exception? No, I didn't say anything of the sort. I raised a question about a quite serious issue: over time, inevitably, Underdog will lose those members that aren't Endangered and have been played enough, only in virtue of a single win. If Insect, like we wish, will get there some day, they will be banned from the event where they most belong and have a chance to compete. This is clearly wrong. The Underdog criteria need periodic reassessment to keep their rank populated, but that could still not be enough for some tribes that might slip through the cracks of the system. A system that's been purposely created for those tribes, such as Insect or Drake or Shapeshifter, that didn't have access to Endangered but weren't strong enough to compete in Regular.
The Illusion win was just the trigger of this discussion, whether they are rightfully in the Major League now, or not.
I don't see how and why the money value of a specific deck could or should have a role in all this.
Speaking of Insect, thanks for the offer AJ, but I was working towards the previous offer by slug360 himself, who expressed interest in the Insect discussion in these comments a few weeks ago. He just confirmed he'll replace Rex (or will join him, if Rex will still find time to contribute at any point) on the Insect side of things. Of course, the Insect discussion doesn't need to be a weekly feature: at some point, it'll be just a matter of report results and discuss new avenues, and that very likely will coincide to the articles following Pure and Underdog events.
With the new legend Rule, Maybe Flagstones is just broken in a prison deck?? Boom/Bust??
This is really nice. I want to master this all. Good job on this by the way. - Gregory J. Daniels DDS
This is nice. The characters are really good. I want to master all their skills. - Gregory J. Daniels DDS
I concur. The logic of this is unassailable.
I am not sure that greed IS good nor that power cards are all fine but that is a very subjective judgment no matter who the judge. We shouldn't be picking on one subset of cards just because it is a wealthy player only set. (the Aether Vial/FoW/Cryptic/Mutavault/Wasteland/Ooo look at me I can slap you in the face with my wallet set that is.) If you want that then run heirloom tribal events.
Illusions are extremely good and that no one previously proved that during the Blippian era might have more to do with the general anti-control feel of the tourney. With super aggro decks running supreme, control has to struggle even with awesome tribes like Illusions. When the aggro tribes are merely aggro, they lose to such power.
It is best to follow the precedents set by the previous events rather than change rules that are inconvenient just because we don't want to deal with the consequences. Illusions (finally) earned their status.
This is interesting to read. I learned a lot from this one. - Gregory J. Daniels DDS
Frankly, a rule not upheld weakens all the others. Illusions are plenty powerful and won quite a few events pre-Kumagoran/Blippian eras. I see no grounds for an exception here. It's a good tribe. Are you trying to pin the victory on the Aether Vial/FoW/Cryptic/Mutavault/Wasteland/Ooo look at me I can slap you in the face with my wallet? Because whilst people would despise playing against those cards, the general rule of your reign has been that greed is good, and absolute power cards are perfectly fine.
If you want strong evidence that Illusions is powerful enough for the big time, consider not merely the win but the fact that it was done with 26 illusions. I assume this was done intentionally for power reasons, but even if chosen to save time and/or expense, the fact that he used six beyond the minimum evinces the depth of the tribe.
I think waste and strip will likely be in no matter so im glad people aren't just voting for them.
The Mono-White Hate deck is from the LCV tournaments in Spain. I'm also playing basically the same deck. (Needless to say, I was surprised when I saw someone else bring it.) I can't speak for albertorodalv, but I kept all 4 Cages in the MD because I was expecting a large amount of Oath of Druids decks and Gush/Pyromancer decks using Yawgmoth's Will. Of course, there ended up being 1 Oath deck and 2 Pyromancer decks, so in hindsight I probably would have moved 1 Cage and 1 Stony (I also expected more Affinity) to the board and brought in 2 Paths maindeck.
As for lands, I assume Waste and Strip are locks (they should be) and while Cavern and Ghost Quarter are definitely playable, I'm actually interested in Port. It's a good card that sees hardly any play; I'd be interested to see what you guys can do with it.
I didn't know that, that's unfortunate, we'll already have reduced attendance due to the Duel Week nature.
We could start 2 hours earlier, but wouldn't that cut the American players out of the event?
Next week, will we play at our usual hour? There will be also Blippy's annual Modern tournament (Modern's Second: A Birthday Bash) 1 hour later after we start.
Should Entomb really be on this list? listing a copy at $18.22 seems ridiculous when you can buy a foil copy from Graveborn for $4.50.
"Pauper players, led by clan Team DB, have banned together to create a informal 'Magic Online Pauper Players Championship.'"
It seems like the not so subtle message here is that instead of "Doing Battle with Commons" just "Don't Bother", until Temporal Fissure is "banned". Players should "band" together to make this happen. A second season will not happen until the format changes.
Team DB = Team DBC
banned = banded
Thank you Peter for nearly delivering the message correctly. I am thanking you, not blaming you and just making light of the mistake.
Thank you as well, for your comments about Melissa and the Community Cup. It was nice to see that deluxeicoff (a formerly prolific Pauper writer) removed his negative comments from his Facebook page. Magic players insist on complaining about everything (like small errors in articles), and I certainly agree with you. The reality is she is a judge, a writer and clearly a solid player. She deserves to attend more than the majority of the people who were invited and not invited. It is pathetic that players have to make an issue out of and try to diminish what is clearly an honor.
Cavern of Souls for utility lands. Great Job on the podcast again.
It's really unfortunate that Wizards is killing the 4 tix phantom sealed. Even though it had terrible EV, it had better EV than the phantom events that they will offer now. I'm not likely to make an 8 dollar impulse phantom event decision. Hopefully Wizards will create phantom drafts again, and cost them at 4 tix.