Honestly I prefer Hindering Touch as it's better in the Storm match-up, which can be hard for the deck without it. It deals with Grapeshot, which is very important, as after that you can start Flickering Glimmerpost. I don't really think Syncopate is really that good in Pauper, as honestly, not many decks have enough interaction with the graveyard to warrant it. It basically becomes a bad Mana Leak most of the time (in my opinion only), whereas Condescend filters the topdeck. If I wanted more counter X effects, I think I'd prefer to play Power Sink over it.
In your opinion, why would Syncopate be better? I'd really like to know. Who knows, you may make a believer of me!
Interesting. To be honest, I'm not too impressed with Simic Growth Chamber in this particular deck, as really the only use it gets is bouncing a Glimmerpost, which really isn't good enough for me, as I really want to be hitting land drops and not replaying Glimmerpost. Ghostly Flicker has done that job just fine. I'm more interesting in Coiling Oracle. I looked at him before, and I certainly like the card, but I didn't have space anywhere to fit him in and test. What slot did you put him in?
A player we both know from our PREs, and who's definitely a jolly, inoffensive guy, was muted because he said that he liked better when the ORCs used to be called Adepts because he could still have his old orc-something account. I find this muting to be warranted a reimbursement. I sympathize with the work the ORCS do, but policing people this way is definitely too much.
My solution to this kind of issues has been to stop writing anything, or even reading, the chat windows in the official rooms.
"This is an opinion that will vary from person to person."
Well, this is the definition of an opinion. :)
But I just want to add this: I'm looking at the infinite combos handling not as a player should, but as a designer (in my opinion) should. I would never be happy with my game allowing this kind of thing where you have to physically tap and untap your cards, physically draw your cards, physically put counters on your cards and keep track of them and then, at some point, suddenly you can just say, "And now I'm doing this a gazillion times, ok?" This is nonsense, and what's worse, it's inelegant as hell. It smells like a compromise from start to finish. In my world, I would never allow that. How is it that if I generate 20 mana and I want to untap my Voltaic Keys 20 times I have to go through the motions, but if you have infinite mana you can just do it once and say you did it 5,000 times? No, you didn't. You want to untap them 5,000 times? Please do it. Be my guest and do it. You're not magical, and time is a factor ALWAYS, even without the chess clocks, because there are only so many hours in a day and you need to be able to do whatever you want to do in your game according to the rules of our physical world.
This is the thing: if your game ignores the laws of physics, it has to do it consistently, as a basic premise of its functioning, not only when it's convenient. It's true of every game: when you achieve a status where your action becomes an automatic success, you still have to comply with the rules of the game, they don't get suspended for you. Because time is still a factor, you can't have it all. You don't transcend to a higher level of existence only because of your trick.
Moreso, if you suddenly allow players to ignore physical constraints, like the paper tournament world does (again, because it's convenient), you take out a nice strategic component, like I already said above. It's not that you really need infinite Restoration Angels to win that game. You just need a dozen in most cases. But you are called to make a choice there, you don't get for the game to make it easy for you.
People really ought to be more careful when talking about people they don't know. (Me for example.) In the past when I stilled played paper magic regularly, I often helped players who were having difficulty in the game and I have no problem with letting someone rewind an honest mistake or correcting someone's misapprehension of the game state even to my own detriment. (I have called the judge on myself before.) (Though this is not so easy to arrange online.)
And I have been known to concede a game clearly won. In fact in commander this saves time when the pain-in-the-ass guy who thinks no one has seen time warp into eternal witness into time warp into capture of jangzou, etal before, insists on going off and taking 40 minutes to do so. I may have a few hard words for them (polite, but firmly disapproving) if I feel they don't see how they are affecting 3 other people. But then I concede and go play another game with people hopefully more amenable to the social contract.
(The perfect example of a good player acting for the benefit of all is the one in one of the myriad puremtgo.com commander articles where the player demonstrates an infinite combo that can kill the table and then concedes. The table plays on after acknowledging his victory and with gratitude. And I have seen someone do that at a table I was playing on and I was happy to experience it. They even said at the beginning of the game that if they were able to go off that they would demonstrate it and then quit.)
Nobility isn't something you can require of others. "Oh, I am going to win anyway, save us both time and quit now!" That demand gets zero sympathy from me. "Show me."
If someone is playing eggs or melira pod in a modern game sure it makes sense to resign if you are playing casually.
But in my opinion this isn't a moral issue. It should never be "I am morally obligated to do so." Because that is pure bs. In my religion (Agnosticism) "God" doesn't indicate what is good and evil for me. I have to suss that out for myself. And yet I still consider myself a moral person despite many past mistakes and while I would certainly applaud someone acting altruistically, I don't feel people are morally obligated to do so. Do as the spirit moves you.
As far as our viewpoints clashing? This is the classic argument between player types. (I am a Timmy Spike if you haven't read my articles to know) It doesn't matter what you think or what I think as far as the rules are concerned (They exist objectively). And for morality...well you can certainly determine your own but judging me, whom you don't know? Well that is about as useful as a bear in a dress.
I certainly don't think my comments invalidate you having an opinion different from mine but if you feel so then my apologies. Just as I don't feel invalidated by your statements of opinion concerning my viewpoints. You are welcome to think whatever you like.
I didn't look deeply at the Gatecrash spoilers yet, but from a first peek, it feels very "latest MaRo" to me. I have a feeling that with these last sets, especially where he was involved more (although we know he's pretty much always THE voice every designer listens to, so modern Magic is more his creature than it still is Garfield's game, even factoring in all the necessary meddling by the other departments), Rosewater had kind of tried to tell people, "Hey, you can play casual at a complex level too. Don't just look for the cards that the pros will play." I don't know, maybe it's just my impression, but some of these mechanics feel like "sophisticated casual" to me. Which is good from my point of view.
But I feel like I mostly need to tip my hat to Keya here. If this interview had a title, it should be, "Spikes are nice people too". :)
And this:
If I could change one thing about the community, it would be to take away the chicken little, sky-is-falling attitude that comes across with just about every decision that Wizards makes. If we react that way to every decision, it is hard to get a proper gauge on when something is really a problem. It may sound like a lot to ask but every now and again we should give credit to the people who have kept this game alive and kicking for 2 decades.
There's a slow clap starting right now from my own little corner of the Internet.
Plus, Erik. I can't really comment any more on that front, but I'm always thinking of him when I read or write on PureMTGO. And I'll always do.
A personal dislike for combo decks is no reason to try to enforce rules in a way that benefits you. Your opinion on the matter is strictly based on bias. "But since then they have gradually worn out their welcome for me. "
Personal distaste is not a grounds to judge for an entire game. Creation of rules needs to be an objective thing. Sitting across from something like 4 horseman going off is no less boring than sitting across from a tempo player thinking through each possibility for 10 minutes or trying to fight through multiple counterspells. What is fun to some is not to others and regardless the situation, being on the losing side of anything is not likely to be enjoyable.
When speaking of infinite combos I am specifically talking about truly infinite combos, not 4 horseman or second sunrise (used as an example to see if you were speaking from personal bias). If a combo is clear and can be said to be iterated an infinite number of times then there is no reason other than to punish the player of the deck(or the poor opponent having to sit through each iteration) to force the player to run through it every time.
Lets say someone is playing Melria and has just played the seer alongside the redcap. There is no reason to force the player to announce the trigger for seer, move redcap to the grave, announce the persist trigger, return it to the field, and announce the damage trigger, and repeat all of those steps the number of times it would take to kill the opponent.
This is another thing where the courtesy of the opponent comes into play. A player like you will ask the opponent to continue the combo until it works in an attempt to either punish the opponent (regardless your personal time wasted) or to have them possibly run to time to get a draw. Then there are people like Watanabe(arguably one of the best in the game) who will keep track of an opponents mana and triggers for them(see pro tour RtR modern finals) even with the game on the line.
It boils down to different personalities. If an opponent (lets say in inni-mirro standard) drops a mirran crusader and a sword on the board while I'm playing mono-green. I have no problem conceding to my opponent simply because at turn 4 (when the sword would be dropped and equiped to the crusader for the second turn) I have no way to deal with the creature nor outrun the opponents clock. I prefer enjoying the game over causing everyone to be bored. Even in a tournament setting if there are no outs at all for me there's no reason to continue other than to draw out a clock. If theres a possibility of fail or its something I have a chance at coming back from I'll have the opponent run through it. shortcut the infinite part and get to the final product and continue game from there.
The point is, this is something that is based strictly on opinion from both sides and neither of us should be allowed to make decisions like this. Neither of us are objective on the subject so both of our points should be invalid. The playerbase as a whole should be polled (with some kind of reward for participation just to make sure we reach the full audience) in order to determine whats right.
I guess there are judges who let sloppy play slide but I can't imagine that happening at the highest level all the time without comment. Yes there are some intuited responses that are nonverbal or terse but they are still responses. They aren't really shortcuts. They just seem that way because there isn't explicit exchange of "I have no responses", "same" for each priority instance. Online we can't really interpret tone of voice or terseness very well and rules enforcement is automatically strictest. (And as a result little in the way of cheating is accomplished online and not very many players can even be rationally accused of it.)
And again I disagree entirely with your premise re: Infinite Combos. I admit the first time I saw them in '94 they were awesome and funny and wow imagine that! But since then they have gradually worn out their welcome for me.
And I don't agree that making a player prove that their combo works is punishment either. (Cf: Mike Long & Prosper Bloom) It is only punishment if they find it to be so (subjective point here.) It is a fair consequence to an action taken to win the game. Why shouldn't they prove they can do it in the time required?
As far as stifling creativity goes well imho very few infinite engines are new. Most of the time, it is a reinvention of the wheel. So this seems like a lame duck argument. I doubt very much creativity is stifled anyway since Johnnies will find the engines and write about them even if they can't demonstrate them (due to time constraints) in tourney settings. Written about engines are quickly absorbed into the public domain of known technology.
And these kind of combos are really only entertaining for the person who is playing them. Unless they fail in which case the op gets to clap their hands with glee or respectfully shake their hand (depending on how mature they are). (Ala: Demonic Consultation.) So one could argue that they are punishing their opponents by forcing them to either concede or sit through the combo.
Now I agree that comparing MTGO and paper is a little like comparing different fruits. And mixing in casual vs tourney is like adding different makes of cars to that comparison so we get Buicks, apples, oranges and Volkswagons. (You decide which are which.) However they all have some things in common. One is that players on the opposite end of an infinite combo invariably do not wish to sit through it. Even if they do sit through it, it is not because it is thrilling for them.
Thanks for bringing these back Paul! I love reading these as they are typically people I have interacted with for years and seeing what their life is like is always fun.
Pauper and Momir have had a huge surge in popularity, and it likely has nothing to do with format rotation. They switched the prize support from core set to current draft set, making it much easier for people to play these formats and then draft the cards from them. That is also why M13 packs are worth more than RTR sets, because you no longer have people getting and immediately selling core set packs to bots. It will also likely make core set cards like Thragtusk retain a lot of value.
Chatting in the client means agree to obey whatever rules are in place. Sometimes people like to push the limits and deliberately get themselves in "trouble". Others, misguidedly start a war against the system to protest what they see as an infringement on their nature right to be a jackhat. Unfortunately most of the time it takes quite a lot of provocation for them to be halted more than temporarily by the ORCs. I am not for mindless moderation and I am also not for pointless rebellion.
This said I do watch what I say in chat. Not out of fear but to keep myself within the respectable confines of the chat rules. Like AJ after a decade+ I have never managed to rile the ORCs to the point of anything more than a mild general (not directed to me specifically) warning. Most of the ORCs are highly intelligent and reasonable people.
I have had valuable conversations with many of them in private on subjects ranging from the game and bugs in it to extraneous stuff relevant to nothing. Very rarely have I felt that an ORC was overstepping (it has happened) or being too hardass. I once made a gentle comment about Moderation vs Obliteration after a particularly harsh edict. The comment went unresponded to so I expect the ORC in question knew they were overboard. (There were multiple mutes and much consternation amongst the regulars.)
This latest trend of "bucking the ORCs" seems to me to be lead by people who think they are fighting for a cause like OWS. Fight the man, and down with the system! They know some people are going to agree with them just because some people find it amusing to be anti-authoritarian and others have the mistaken notion that they are entitled to say whatever they like whenever they like in whatever context they like with impunity.
The one area the chat policy of WOTC really fails hard is dealing with trading advertisements. The newer players don't necessarily know the rules to begin with (so no intent to do harm) and desperately need outlets for trading for the cards for decks that they want to play. The way Magic Online is set up this is terribly hard for new players because there IS no trade economy. Thankfully there is at least the bots economy so if you have tix you can build decks for reasonable prices.
But telling players to go buy from bots is a terribly cold and unhelpful answer. Many times when an ORC can't or won't apprise the new player what the real deal is I go ahead and pm them to set them straight at least. I am not a philanthropist by nature but I do like to see people get ahead and if I can give them good advice that is all to the good.
I said all this on the forums but it bears repeating I think. If we really want to build our community we have to pay attention to issues like the chats and how players feel in them. While I dont think the juff chat is overly moderated I do think it would be helpful if it weren't the default chat people get sent to automatically. As Heath has said many times we need the IRC like chat of v2 back.
AJ I am surprised your Archons deck didn't go undefeated. It was really hard to beat even when I was designing with it in mind.
In RE Gatecrash:
I am still not very excited by most cards but boros does look promising. I expect some interesting things to happen during combat steps after it hits us online here.
I was talking about the difference between paper and MODO, not the difference between tournament and casual play. We're talking about 4 different games. Shortcutting works on paper, not modo. Shortcutting is seen at the highest level of play by the best players in the game in paper as well.
As for infinite combo, it wouldn't be boring if you didn't have to repeat the process each time, shortcut the process and its over in moments rather than minutes. I don't like sitting across from a second sunrise any more than the next player, but to say someone who wants to play a deck like that should be punished because of their deck choice does nothing but hurt the game and stifle creativity. It's a closed minded view.
Jam's editor is fairly straight-forward. It is the html it produces that needs some tweaking typically (because it doesn't recognize Exodus cards yet and is slow to recognize new card names.) The fix is fairly simple though. Just copy the a tag from another card name (once you have copied the whole table into an empty text file) and replace the pertinent parts.
You also may have to move a few card names to other categories as it seems to confuse certain lands and or creatures for Other Spells.
Thank you Paul for the advice. I actually asked Kumagoro how to embed the video instead of linking them and I hope I can use it in my next article. I will try to use jamuraa's deck editor too if i can learn to use it. I hope it is user friendly. I've read your interview with Keya Saleh and I hope to read about the legendary people of the community.. Do you already have an interview with blippy? I would really like to see an article about him instead of reading something he wrote. Peace and God bless..
A lot of players engage in sloppy play in order to short cut things they think are intuitive. Their opponents assume this is correct and do the same thing. Then during tourney play they discover the impropriety as they try to undo a misrepresented stack. This is quite common. I suppose if you never intend to play tourneys then you will be fine never learning to check for priorities.
As far as infinite combos go, I couldn't disagree more with your conclusion. Tedium is the price you pay for boring your opponent to death.
This is an opinion that will vary from person to person.
As a software developer I can tell you it would not be an easy thing to program. The logic wouldn't be too difficult, but there are several hundred infinite combo's and some probably haven't even been discovered, and in order to create a system to handle infinite combo's that couldn't be abused would require a lot off man hours in coding and test. Cost/benefit isn't a good enough balance for them most likely.
As for infinite combos, I feel the paper version is the correct version. Making someone repeat an obviously endless combo is not necessary, that just takes a lot of the fun out of playing those decks and adds a level of tedium that we just do not need in the game. Especially in paper when searching and keeping track can make things even more annoying. It doesn't increase the challenge just the tedium. We have to keep in mind this is a game that is supposed to be fun, not a chore.
As for the chess clock. I hate the idea of using one. It puts a hard stop on a lot of things and would make some decks outright impossible to play just because of their complexity. The chess clock on mtgo serves a purpose, it provides a way to choose a victor after a pair goes to "time" and many people have lost games because of computer issues or just complexity. Something related to the environment that is not directly a part of the game should not provide an advantage or disadvantage to any specific deck. This takes a lot of the fun out of the game. It gives simplistic aggro decks an advantage while slower control decks lose a lot. We already have rules against slow play to prevent cheating, we don't need a clock to stare us down too lol.
these things are largely personal preference. I prefer paper magic myself for 1 simple reason. Speed. I can play significantly faster with paper cards than having to do all the clicking I do on modo. Against a familiar opponent i can untap, draw, drop a land and tap some to drop a creature sideways and turn the rest sideways and thats the end of the turn. In modo I have to step through everything in perfect order. Some people may require you to do that anyway, but in person I can shortcut things and can physically move faster. Online is just so slow.
Congrats for making top 8 with an interesting take a relatively new deck. (GW Tokens in Silverblack seems underexploited.) By the way I strongly recommend you format your deck lists to be a bit more attractive. (Using Jamuraa's deck editor works well even if you have to fix some links and move cards around. http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php)
Also you might want to think about embedding your videos instead of just linking to them.
Oh yeah, I knew that you had made a Skullbriar list, but I hadn't actually seen it yet. Soul's Might is pretty sweet, I think I might have just missed it. Dunno if my tek is better, more like there have been additional cards printed since your article. Glad you liked it!
Honestly I prefer Hindering Touch as it's better in the Storm match-up, which can be hard for the deck without it. It deals with Grapeshot, which is very important, as after that you can start Flickering Glimmerpost. I don't really think Syncopate is really that good in Pauper, as honestly, not many decks have enough interaction with the graveyard to warrant it. It basically becomes a bad Mana Leak most of the time (in my opinion only), whereas Condescend filters the topdeck. If I wanted more counter X effects, I think I'd prefer to play Power Sink over it.
In your opinion, why would Syncopate be better? I'd really like to know. Who knows, you may make a believer of me!
Interesting. To be honest, I'm not too impressed with Simic Growth Chamber in this particular deck, as really the only use it gets is bouncing a Glimmerpost, which really isn't good enough for me, as I really want to be hitting land drops and not replaying Glimmerpost. Ghostly Flicker has done that job just fine. I'm more interesting in Coiling Oracle. I looked at him before, and I certainly like the card, but I didn't have space anywhere to fit him in and test. What slot did you put him in?
I liked this deck a lot though I made a couple changes i added Coiling Oracle and simic growth chambers
the Coiling oracle really impresses me at worse it is a draw card at best it accelerates a cloud post turn 2.
A player we both know from our PREs, and who's definitely a jolly, inoffensive guy, was muted because he said that he liked better when the ORCs used to be called Adepts because he could still have his old orc-something account. I find this muting to be warranted a reimbursement. I sympathize with the work the ORCS do, but policing people this way is definitely too much.
My solution to this kind of issues has been to stop writing anything, or even reading, the chat windows in the official rooms.
Apparently the phrase "S.O.L." is enough to warrant a muting, as I just found out.
I know I tread a thin line often, but overzealous ORCs can lick the sweat from my... uhhh... armpit. :)
"This is an opinion that will vary from person to person."
Well, this is the definition of an opinion. :)
But I just want to add this: I'm looking at the infinite combos handling not as a player should, but as a designer (in my opinion) should. I would never be happy with my game allowing this kind of thing where you have to physically tap and untap your cards, physically draw your cards, physically put counters on your cards and keep track of them and then, at some point, suddenly you can just say, "And now I'm doing this a gazillion times, ok?" This is nonsense, and what's worse, it's inelegant as hell. It smells like a compromise from start to finish. In my world, I would never allow that. How is it that if I generate 20 mana and I want to untap my Voltaic Keys 20 times I have to go through the motions, but if you have infinite mana you can just do it once and say you did it 5,000 times? No, you didn't. You want to untap them 5,000 times? Please do it. Be my guest and do it. You're not magical, and time is a factor ALWAYS, even without the chess clocks, because there are only so many hours in a day and you need to be able to do whatever you want to do in your game according to the rules of our physical world.
This is the thing: if your game ignores the laws of physics, it has to do it consistently, as a basic premise of its functioning, not only when it's convenient. It's true of every game: when you achieve a status where your action becomes an automatic success, you still have to comply with the rules of the game, they don't get suspended for you. Because time is still a factor, you can't have it all. You don't transcend to a higher level of existence only because of your trick.
Moreso, if you suddenly allow players to ignore physical constraints, like the paper tournament world does (again, because it's convenient), you take out a nice strategic component, like I already said above. It's not that you really need infinite Restoration Angels to win that game. You just need a dozen in most cases. But you are called to make a choice there, you don't get for the game to make it easy for you.
People really ought to be more careful when talking about people they don't know. (Me for example.) In the past when I stilled played paper magic regularly, I often helped players who were having difficulty in the game and I have no problem with letting someone rewind an honest mistake or correcting someone's misapprehension of the game state even to my own detriment. (I have called the judge on myself before.) (Though this is not so easy to arrange online.)
And I have been known to concede a game clearly won. In fact in commander this saves time when the pain-in-the-ass guy who thinks no one has seen time warp into eternal witness into time warp into capture of jangzou, etal before, insists on going off and taking 40 minutes to do so. I may have a few hard words for them (polite, but firmly disapproving) if I feel they don't see how they are affecting 3 other people. But then I concede and go play another game with people hopefully more amenable to the social contract.
(The perfect example of a good player acting for the benefit of all is the one in one of the myriad puremtgo.com commander articles where the player demonstrates an infinite combo that can kill the table and then concedes. The table plays on after acknowledging his victory and with gratitude. And I have seen someone do that at a table I was playing on and I was happy to experience it. They even said at the beginning of the game that if they were able to go off that they would demonstrate it and then quit.)
Nobility isn't something you can require of others. "Oh, I am going to win anyway, save us both time and quit now!" That demand gets zero sympathy from me. "Show me."
If someone is playing eggs or melira pod in a modern game sure it makes sense to resign if you are playing casually.
But in my opinion this isn't a moral issue. It should never be "I am morally obligated to do so." Because that is pure bs. In my religion (Agnosticism) "God" doesn't indicate what is good and evil for me. I have to suss that out for myself. And yet I still consider myself a moral person despite many past mistakes and while I would certainly applaud someone acting altruistically, I don't feel people are morally obligated to do so. Do as the spirit moves you.
As far as our viewpoints clashing? This is the classic argument between player types. (I am a Timmy Spike if you haven't read my articles to know) It doesn't matter what you think or what I think as far as the rules are concerned (They exist objectively). And for morality...well you can certainly determine your own but judging me, whom you don't know? Well that is about as useful as a bear in a dress.
I certainly don't think my comments invalidate you having an opinion different from mine but if you feel so then my apologies. Just as I don't feel invalidated by your statements of opinion concerning my viewpoints. You are welcome to think whatever you like.
Meantime have fun and leave the high horse alone.
I didn't look deeply at the Gatecrash spoilers yet, but from a first peek, it feels very "latest MaRo" to me. I have a feeling that with these last sets, especially where he was involved more (although we know he's pretty much always THE voice every designer listens to, so modern Magic is more his creature than it still is Garfield's game, even factoring in all the necessary meddling by the other departments), Rosewater had kind of tried to tell people, "Hey, you can play casual at a complex level too. Don't just look for the cards that the pros will play." I don't know, maybe it's just my impression, but some of these mechanics feel like "sophisticated casual" to me. Which is good from my point of view.
Great job as always, Paul.
But I feel like I mostly need to tip my hat to Keya here. If this interview had a title, it should be, "Spikes are nice people too". :)
And this:
If I could change one thing about the community, it would be to take away the chicken little, sky-is-falling attitude that comes across with just about every decision that Wizards makes. If we react that way to every decision, it is hard to get a proper gauge on when something is really a problem. It may sound like a lot to ask but every now and again we should give credit to the people who have kept this game alive and kicking for 2 decades.
There's a slow clap starting right now from my own little corner of the Internet.
Plus, Erik. I can't really comment any more on that front, but I'm always thinking of him when I read or write on PureMTGO. And I'll always do.
we have no way to come to an agreement on this.
A personal dislike for combo decks is no reason to try to enforce rules in a way that benefits you. Your opinion on the matter is strictly based on bias. "But since then they have gradually worn out their welcome for me. "
Personal distaste is not a grounds to judge for an entire game. Creation of rules needs to be an objective thing. Sitting across from something like 4 horseman going off is no less boring than sitting across from a tempo player thinking through each possibility for 10 minutes or trying to fight through multiple counterspells. What is fun to some is not to others and regardless the situation, being on the losing side of anything is not likely to be enjoyable.
When speaking of infinite combos I am specifically talking about truly infinite combos, not 4 horseman or second sunrise (used as an example to see if you were speaking from personal bias). If a combo is clear and can be said to be iterated an infinite number of times then there is no reason other than to punish the player of the deck(or the poor opponent having to sit through each iteration) to force the player to run through it every time.
Lets say someone is playing Melria and has just played the seer alongside the redcap. There is no reason to force the player to announce the trigger for seer, move redcap to the grave, announce the persist trigger, return it to the field, and announce the damage trigger, and repeat all of those steps the number of times it would take to kill the opponent.
This is another thing where the courtesy of the opponent comes into play. A player like you will ask the opponent to continue the combo until it works in an attempt to either punish the opponent (regardless your personal time wasted) or to have them possibly run to time to get a draw. Then there are people like Watanabe(arguably one of the best in the game) who will keep track of an opponents mana and triggers for them(see pro tour RtR modern finals) even with the game on the line.
It boils down to different personalities. If an opponent (lets say in inni-mirro standard) drops a mirran crusader and a sword on the board while I'm playing mono-green. I have no problem conceding to my opponent simply because at turn 4 (when the sword would be dropped and equiped to the crusader for the second turn) I have no way to deal with the creature nor outrun the opponents clock. I prefer enjoying the game over causing everyone to be bored. Even in a tournament setting if there are no outs at all for me there's no reason to continue other than to draw out a clock. If theres a possibility of fail or its something I have a chance at coming back from I'll have the opponent run through it. shortcut the infinite part and get to the final product and continue game from there.
The point is, this is something that is based strictly on opinion from both sides and neither of us should be allowed to make decisions like this. Neither of us are objective on the subject so both of our points should be invalid. The playerbase as a whole should be polled (with some kind of reward for participation just to make sure we reach the full audience) in order to determine whats right.
I would think Syncopate would be a better fit in SB than Hindering Touch
Thanks Heath, I enjoy doing them. Time just seems to get away from me so I find months passing between articles at times.
Apparently the soundcloud gizmo broke...:(
Here is the link instead:
https://soundcloud.com/paul-emerson-leicht/keya-saleh-interview
I guess there are judges who let sloppy play slide but I can't imagine that happening at the highest level all the time without comment. Yes there are some intuited responses that are nonverbal or terse but they are still responses. They aren't really shortcuts. They just seem that way because there isn't explicit exchange of "I have no responses", "same" for each priority instance. Online we can't really interpret tone of voice or terseness very well and rules enforcement is automatically strictest. (And as a result little in the way of cheating is accomplished online and not very many players can even be rationally accused of it.)
And again I disagree entirely with your premise re: Infinite Combos. I admit the first time I saw them in '94 they were awesome and funny and wow imagine that! But since then they have gradually worn out their welcome for me.
And I don't agree that making a player prove that their combo works is punishment either. (Cf: Mike Long & Prosper Bloom) It is only punishment if they find it to be so (subjective point here.) It is a fair consequence to an action taken to win the game. Why shouldn't they prove they can do it in the time required?
As far as stifling creativity goes well imho very few infinite engines are new. Most of the time, it is a reinvention of the wheel. So this seems like a lame duck argument. I doubt very much creativity is stifled anyway since Johnnies will find the engines and write about them even if they can't demonstrate them (due to time constraints) in tourney settings. Written about engines are quickly absorbed into the public domain of known technology.
And these kind of combos are really only entertaining for the person who is playing them. Unless they fail in which case the op gets to clap their hands with glee or respectfully shake their hand (depending on how mature they are). (Ala: Demonic Consultation.) So one could argue that they are punishing their opponents by forcing them to either concede or sit through the combo.
Now I agree that comparing MTGO and paper is a little like comparing different fruits. And mixing in casual vs tourney is like adding different makes of cars to that comparison so we get Buicks, apples, oranges and Volkswagons. (You decide which are which.) However they all have some things in common. One is that players on the opposite end of an infinite combo invariably do not wish to sit through it. Even if they do sit through it, it is not because it is thrilling for them.
Pauper and Momir have had a huge surge in popularity, and it likely has nothing to do with format rotation. They switched the prize support from core set to current draft set, making it much easier for people to play these formats and then draft the cards from them. That is also why M13 packs are worth more than RTR sets, because you no longer have people getting and immediately selling core set packs to bots. It will also likely make core set cards like Thragtusk retain a lot of value.
Chatting in the client means agree to obey whatever rules are in place. Sometimes people like to push the limits and deliberately get themselves in "trouble". Others, misguidedly start a war against the system to protest what they see as an infringement on their nature right to be a jackhat. Unfortunately most of the time it takes quite a lot of provocation for them to be halted more than temporarily by the ORCs. I am not for mindless moderation and I am also not for pointless rebellion.
This said I do watch what I say in chat. Not out of fear but to keep myself within the respectable confines of the chat rules. Like AJ after a decade+ I have never managed to rile the ORCs to the point of anything more than a mild general (not directed to me specifically) warning. Most of the ORCs are highly intelligent and reasonable people.
I have had valuable conversations with many of them in private on subjects ranging from the game and bugs in it to extraneous stuff relevant to nothing. Very rarely have I felt that an ORC was overstepping (it has happened) or being too hardass. I once made a gentle comment about Moderation vs Obliteration after a particularly harsh edict. The comment went unresponded to so I expect the ORC in question knew they were overboard. (There were multiple mutes and much consternation amongst the regulars.)
This latest trend of "bucking the ORCs" seems to me to be lead by people who think they are fighting for a cause like OWS. Fight the man, and down with the system! They know some people are going to agree with them just because some people find it amusing to be anti-authoritarian and others have the mistaken notion that they are entitled to say whatever they like whenever they like in whatever context they like with impunity.
The one area the chat policy of WOTC really fails hard is dealing with trading advertisements. The newer players don't necessarily know the rules to begin with (so no intent to do harm) and desperately need outlets for trading for the cards for decks that they want to play. The way Magic Online is set up this is terribly hard for new players because there IS no trade economy. Thankfully there is at least the bots economy so if you have tix you can build decks for reasonable prices.
But telling players to go buy from bots is a terribly cold and unhelpful answer. Many times when an ORC can't or won't apprise the new player what the real deal is I go ahead and pm them to set them straight at least. I am not a philanthropist by nature but I do like to see people get ahead and if I can give them good advice that is all to the good.
I said all this on the forums but it bears repeating I think. If we really want to build our community we have to pay attention to issues like the chats and how players feel in them. While I dont think the juff chat is overly moderated I do think it would be helpful if it weren't the default chat people get sent to automatically. As Heath has said many times we need the IRC like chat of v2 back.
AJ I am surprised your Archons deck didn't go undefeated. It was really hard to beat even when I was designing with it in mind.
In RE Gatecrash:
I am still not very excited by most cards but boros does look promising. I expect some interesting things to happen during combat steps after it hits us online here.
I was talking about the difference between paper and MODO, not the difference between tournament and casual play. We're talking about 4 different games. Shortcutting works on paper, not modo. Shortcutting is seen at the highest level of play by the best players in the game in paper as well.
As for infinite combo, it wouldn't be boring if you didn't have to repeat the process each time, shortcut the process and its over in moments rather than minutes. I don't like sitting across from a second sunrise any more than the next player, but to say someone who wants to play a deck like that should be punished because of their deck choice does nothing but hurt the game and stifle creativity. It's a closed minded view.
Can i say I like links better then embedding it makes the page load a lot easier and without lag at least on my end
Indeed I have done so, though because I did a two for one with it, it might not be so obvious to find: http://puremtgo.com/articles/legendary-personalities-superhero-team. He is teamed up in the article with the maestro of commander Leviathan (Tarasco).
Jam's editor is fairly straight-forward. It is the html it produces that needs some tweaking typically (because it doesn't recognize Exodus cards yet and is slow to recognize new card names.) The fix is fairly simple though. Just copy the a tag from another card name (once you have copied the whole table into an empty text file) and replace the pertinent parts.
You also may have to move a few card names to other categories as it seems to confuse certain lands and or creatures for Other Spells.
Thank you Paul for the advice. I actually asked Kumagoro how to embed the video instead of linking them and I hope I can use it in my next article. I will try to use jamuraa's deck editor too if i can learn to use it. I hope it is user friendly. I've read your interview with Keya Saleh and I hope to read about the legendary people of the community.. Do you already have an interview with blippy? I would really like to see an article about him instead of reading something he wrote. Peace and God bless..
A lot of players engage in sloppy play in order to short cut things they think are intuitive. Their opponents assume this is correct and do the same thing. Then during tourney play they discover the impropriety as they try to undo a misrepresented stack. This is quite common. I suppose if you never intend to play tourneys then you will be fine never learning to check for priorities.
As far as infinite combos go, I couldn't disagree more with your conclusion. Tedium is the price you pay for boring your opponent to death.
This is an opinion that will vary from person to person.
As a software developer I can tell you it would not be an easy thing to program. The logic wouldn't be too difficult, but there are several hundred infinite combo's and some probably haven't even been discovered, and in order to create a system to handle infinite combo's that couldn't be abused would require a lot off man hours in coding and test. Cost/benefit isn't a good enough balance for them most likely.
As for infinite combos, I feel the paper version is the correct version. Making someone repeat an obviously endless combo is not necessary, that just takes a lot of the fun out of playing those decks and adds a level of tedium that we just do not need in the game. Especially in paper when searching and keeping track can make things even more annoying. It doesn't increase the challenge just the tedium. We have to keep in mind this is a game that is supposed to be fun, not a chore.
As for the chess clock. I hate the idea of using one. It puts a hard stop on a lot of things and would make some decks outright impossible to play just because of their complexity. The chess clock on mtgo serves a purpose, it provides a way to choose a victor after a pair goes to "time" and many people have lost games because of computer issues or just complexity. Something related to the environment that is not directly a part of the game should not provide an advantage or disadvantage to any specific deck. This takes a lot of the fun out of the game. It gives simplistic aggro decks an advantage while slower control decks lose a lot. We already have rules against slow play to prevent cheating, we don't need a clock to stare us down too lol.
these things are largely personal preference. I prefer paper magic myself for 1 simple reason. Speed. I can play significantly faster with paper cards than having to do all the clicking I do on modo. Against a familiar opponent i can untap, draw, drop a land and tap some to drop a creature sideways and turn the rest sideways and thats the end of the turn. In modo I have to step through everything in perfect order. Some people may require you to do that anyway, but in person I can shortcut things and can physically move faster. Online is just so slow.
Congrats for making top 8 with an interesting take a relatively new deck. (GW Tokens in Silverblack seems underexploited.) By the way I strongly recommend you format your deck lists to be a bit more attractive. (Using Jamuraa's deck editor works well even if you have to fix some links and move cards around. http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php)
Also you might want to think about embedding your videos instead of just linking to them.
Oh yeah, I knew that you had made a Skullbriar list, but I hadn't actually seen it yet. Soul's Might is pretty sweet, I think I might have just missed it. Dunno if my tek is better, more like there have been additional cards printed since your article. Glad you liked it!