In paper, I've played at a number of different stores. I've played in non-competitive groups where no prizes were at stake. In every case, you get three types of players: those who know about every format (but mostly play standard), those who only play standard, and new players who just throw decks together regardless of the set legality.
I think people leaving and coming back to magic- an occurrence which is more common that I might have at first suspected- is simply explained by the dull (and expensive) nature of standard. Standard is THE format for magic, but Wizards of the Coast is not looking at solutions to liven it up outside of card development. In that department, they have improved considerably since the disaster of printing Batterskull and the resultant bannings that ensued.
However, now that they have fired the "development bullet," it might be time to look at other ways to make standard more interesting. One way would be to add another block and another core set to it. Another way might be to go back to the system where they printed four sets per block, as they did in Shadowmoor and Time Spiral. There is usually a lull during the summer in which they can fit another set in there if they really want to. Additionally, I believe there should be no small sets (150 cards or so). Every set should be 230+ cards. This adds to the card pool and keeps standard more diverse.
Wizards is moving in the right direction with standard, they're just not there yet. With Modern, they've already gotten there, but they have yet to figure out how to promote Modern as a format. I don't know that I want to wait around for years and years to grind Modern in paper, but I also do not feel comfortable that Wizards has a firm grasp of technology to ensure that I have a pleasant experience playing online. The best solution, then, is to do it yourself and start your own events.
Great, man, I was really looking forward to your new installment (it's pretty much the only series about drafting I read/listen to, it's so good to follow your own thought chain in real time as opposed to just look at a bunch of choices afterwards).
Reading the nostalgia-related title, I had hoped for a cube draft, though! Instead, we get one of those super-boring Maques block, moan. Please, never do one of those ever again. :)
(Also: why you didn't ever acknowledge the presence of Brainstorm in pack 2? That felt weird to me).
Extort looks like the strongest mechanic of gatecrash, especially with Rhox Faithmender. I think Conjurer's Closet could work very well with the Orzhov legend.
"many Modern cards are cheaper simply because they aren't in standard. Standard overshadows all other formats to a ridiculous extent, and I believe it has more to do with players who invest 500 dollars in standard not investing 70 dollars in Modern."
My thoughts exactly. Standard is always going to be an expensive format, because its meta is restricted (with a limited set of chase Mythics) and the hype is huge.
Seems to me that you're basing this opinion on what happens in the paper world nearest to you.
I can tell you Standard is WAAAAAY more expensive than Modern. That's because Standard suffers from the hype of the new cards, especially the Mythics. Modern doesn't, or at least not necessarily. A simple example: how much do you think will cost Huntmaster of the Fells once it rotates out of Standard? For a quick answer, look at how much Master of the Wild Hunt costs now that it's a Modern card, and compare and contrast to what he used to cost during his Standard (or even Extended) days.
Another one: Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Standard days = 30+ tix. Modern days = currently 9 tix (has been down to 6-7 too).
And while after any given Standard rotation you know very soon which are the decks and cards you need to be competitive (therefore inflating their prices), Modern is a varied, vastly unexplored format where you can easily succeed with tier-2 or tier-3 decks. Plus, it's WotC's pet format, they're willing to fix any issue with it (anomalies like Tarmogoyf, for instance). They can't and won't fix the issues with Standard inflated prices.
Hey, congrats, man!
I recognize myself (back when I was doing this kind of traveling stuff in paper) in your "they're just better than me" attitude. And it's healthy to know one's own limits, but I remember a Winter.Wolf's article basically saying that the main trick is to believe you can do it. I think that in the end, you did believe in your Day 2 happening more than not.
Don't build Splinter Twin for Modern, build Pod! At least you will have fun in any case! :)
(Also: is Splinter still a thing in PTQ-level Modern? Within the PRE scene is pretty much disappeared, I was under the impression that Abrupt Decay was the coup de grâce to it).
Modern isn't necessarily more expensive than any other format. You can play effective budget decks and, from what I have observed, many Modern cards are cheaper simply because they aren't in standard. Standard overshadows all other formats to a ridiculous extent, and I believe it has more to do with players who invest 500 dollars in standard not investing 70 dollars in Modern.
As for myself, I would like to buy 2 or 3 boxes of Modern Masters when it comes out. I'm more excited for this set than other set I can remember magic announcing.
The problem I see with paper modern was that nobody had a collection built for it, and after the epic failure of the last 2 extended formats, a lot are unwilling to build the required collection. Std. players aren't going to quit std to play a more expensive format with less tournaments, Legacy/Vintage players certainly aren't going to sell their duals and good cards to buy crappier versions of the same cards...so who is going to go through the expense and (in paper at least) time investment required to play Modern?
The stores around here don't really carry modern cards (because nobody plays it), so building any kind of modern deck requires a very expensive stop at SCG or another online store...somehow I suspect that a modern set at $7 a pack won't change any of this, but I really hope I am wrong.
Why price of Legacy cards didn't react at all on Season 1 announcement?
Only Wasteland is higher than usual. I know med, urza drafts were not so long ago, but in fact duals, should be much higher now and they are currently at the level when med drafts finished. Even Force of Will, which will be given as a promo, should be over 100 tix due to being used in almost every legacy deck. Even Tempest block cards didn't react and there were not any temepest drafts. I don't understand it now, someone smarter may explain it to me?
The event takes place typically between 12pm and 3pm (at the latest and thats with 5 rounds) 2 rounds of commander swiss shouldn't take anywhere near that long. Assuming of course each game isn't set to something crazy like 60mins per player.
I want to try and catch the Tribal Commander, But I kinda have to leave for work at 16:00 CTZ.
I'm thinking this will probably end up being a problem :/
"Didnt catch the swap to multiplayer edh until just now"
Heh, it's not that easy to reach the players. I put the update in the forum, in the google sheet, and here (in the comment section for the previous article). But they are all places where you actively need to go to find out what's new. It might be useful to create a mailing list, maybe?
Glad you liked the flavor for the joined tribes. That costed me an insane amount of time, and will probably remain mostly unused, but it was fun to do. :)
I hope the Commander event will be satisfying enough, so we can bring it back a few more times next year.
Nice to see the form already filled out by a few players. :)
In the special event preference, I see your answer being "I would love to see more 2hg, commander and singleton". Was that right?
Anyway, I forgot to say that if at any time (until I'll announce that the survey is closed, which will be in several weeks) someone would want to change their answers, they can just take the survey again. When the time to put together all the answers will come, I'll count the most recent answers for each player (there's a timestamp for each submission).
Didnt catch the swap to multiplayer edh until just now, glad I saw that before showing up with Wydwen faeries tomorrow, which would have been pretty awful there. I really like the work you put into the flavorful cross-tribe creations though! May be able to adjust my favorite casual commander a little and run that thanks to your special tribe rulings.
Looks like I accurately predicted last weeks metagame, except that I thought the Punishing Fire deck would beat those decks, and apparently I was wrong about that. The rule keeping the Big Shot tribes out of those events seems fine to me. Starting to think I may have a hard time keeping up with the special event calendar though, and that's saying something since I'm pretty involved in this community. Don't know the best way to publicize it myself, just mentioning it as something to stay on top of week to week, we can't assume everyone knows and need to keep the event accessible to new players. Got some hope that Kuma's edh event will bring some crossover interest!
Well, there's a good reason that I hadn't tried Scar. I didn't even know it existed, and that effect definitely merits testing. I'll be sure to try it out and see how it works. In regards to Electrickery, I definitely understand the reasoning for having a couple in the main, the card is very powerful. I generally prefer Bolt game one, but I understand the reasoning and I'll be sure to try it out. I'm unable to access MTGO for the next week or so, as I'm in the process of upgrading my laptop, so that testing may take a little while. That's also the reason I don't have any video content at this point in time. And Wild Hunger. I know the card, I had just completely forgotten that it existed. Once again, that's another card that I believe merits testing.
Thanks for the suggestions though. I plan on eventually building with Silver Drake in mind, as it's the UW version of Kavu, and it interacts favorably with both Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion, and things like Aven Riftwatcher. With that many bounce effects I'd be more willing to dedicate more of the deck to ETB effects.
Still filling out section 1.5 of the survey (Nicely formated Vantar!)
I'm glad that my 2 losses ended up 1st and 3rd place respectively. Makes me feel a little better about beating on my friend Chris round 1 only to be out of the money. In a sense I am glad I didn't bring my Dryads xmas deck as that was doomed to do poorly vs this very unxmas like field.
Thanks again for the xmas stuff Kuma, made the event worthy attending.
Just finished and noticed the form didn't register my selection of Attending singleton tribal in this question: What special event do you like to play in the most?
That deck looks like a lot of fun, the recursion with Horned Kavu looks like a good way of playing an attrition battle. Due to the slower nature needed to get a lot of the advantages of Kavu, I have a few suggestions to battle the quicker decks of the format. Some number of electrickery absolutely needs to be in the maindeck, so much Storm is around and they are also very helpful vs Faeries, Infect, Goblins, WW. I think maybe a 2/2 split between main and side would be the way to go. I would also suggest replacing the Electrostatic Bolts with Scar. Infect and Stompie are both more popular than affinity and Scar is great in these matchups. One thing that could also be tested is using Wild Hunger instead of Colossal Might. If you more often find yourself trying to put your opponent on a clock, go with Colossal Might. If you think that you get more matchups where you will be trying to grind out advantages with Horned kavu, I would put some number of Wild Hunger in the deck.
I have to say, given a week's notice on the rules was really not enough to build something competitive. I built a dozen or so decks (different tribal variations) attempting to find something fun for myself and yet somewhat competitive and I don't think I succeeded.
Half the decks I built don't stand up to the generic wilderness decks (I mean playing against random players/groups). The other half do but aren't really especially good at it. Group dynamics have a lot to do with whether a weak deck survives. That doesn't really make for a fun experience. Pity, given a few more weeks I might have a deck worth playing.
In paper, I've played at a number of different stores. I've played in non-competitive groups where no prizes were at stake. In every case, you get three types of players: those who know about every format (but mostly play standard), those who only play standard, and new players who just throw decks together regardless of the set legality.
I think people leaving and coming back to magic- an occurrence which is more common that I might have at first suspected- is simply explained by the dull (and expensive) nature of standard. Standard is THE format for magic, but Wizards of the Coast is not looking at solutions to liven it up outside of card development. In that department, they have improved considerably since the disaster of printing Batterskull and the resultant bannings that ensued.
However, now that they have fired the "development bullet," it might be time to look at other ways to make standard more interesting. One way would be to add another block and another core set to it. Another way might be to go back to the system where they printed four sets per block, as they did in Shadowmoor and Time Spiral. There is usually a lull during the summer in which they can fit another set in there if they really want to. Additionally, I believe there should be no small sets (150 cards or so). Every set should be 230+ cards. This adds to the card pool and keeps standard more diverse.
Wizards is moving in the right direction with standard, they're just not there yet. With Modern, they've already gotten there, but they have yet to figure out how to promote Modern as a format. I don't know that I want to wait around for years and years to grind Modern in paper, but I also do not feel comfortable that Wizards has a firm grasp of technology to ensure that I have a pleasant experience playing online. The best solution, then, is to do it yourself and start your own events.
Great, man, I was really looking forward to your new installment (it's pretty much the only series about drafting I read/listen to, it's so good to follow your own thought chain in real time as opposed to just look at a bunch of choices afterwards).
Reading the nostalgia-related title, I had hoped for a cube draft, though! Instead, we get one of those super-boring Maques block, moan. Please, never do one of those ever again. :)
(Also: why you didn't ever acknowledge the presence of Brainstorm in pack 2? That felt weird to me).
Extort looks like the strongest mechanic of gatecrash, especially with Rhox Faithmender. I think Conjurer's Closet could work very well with the Orzhov legend.
"many Modern cards are cheaper simply because they aren't in standard. Standard overshadows all other formats to a ridiculous extent, and I believe it has more to do with players who invest 500 dollars in standard not investing 70 dollars in Modern."
My thoughts exactly. Standard is always going to be an expensive format, because its meta is restricted (with a limited set of chase Mythics) and the hype is huge.
Seems to me that you're basing this opinion on what happens in the paper world nearest to you.
I can tell you Standard is WAAAAAY more expensive than Modern. That's because Standard suffers from the hype of the new cards, especially the Mythics. Modern doesn't, or at least not necessarily. A simple example: how much do you think will cost Huntmaster of the Fells once it rotates out of Standard? For a quick answer, look at how much Master of the Wild Hunt costs now that it's a Modern card, and compare and contrast to what he used to cost during his Standard (or even Extended) days.
Another one: Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Standard days = 30+ tix. Modern days = currently 9 tix (has been down to 6-7 too).
And while after any given Standard rotation you know very soon which are the decks and cards you need to be competitive (therefore inflating their prices), Modern is a varied, vastly unexplored format where you can easily succeed with tier-2 or tier-3 decks. Plus, it's WotC's pet format, they're willing to fix any issue with it (anomalies like Tarmogoyf, for instance). They can't and won't fix the issues with Standard inflated prices.
Hey, congrats, man!
I recognize myself (back when I was doing this kind of traveling stuff in paper) in your "they're just better than me" attitude. And it's healthy to know one's own limits, but I remember a Winter.Wolf's article basically saying that the main trick is to believe you can do it. I think that in the end, you did believe in your Day 2 happening more than not.
Don't build Splinter Twin for Modern, build Pod! At least you will have fun in any case! :)
(Also: is Splinter still a thing in PTQ-level Modern? Within the PRE scene is pretty much disappeared, I was under the impression that Abrupt Decay was the coup de grâce to it).
Seems like Sulfer Elemental would be an obvious choice against the spirit decks since you are running red.
Modern isn't necessarily more expensive than any other format. You can play effective budget decks and, from what I have observed, many Modern cards are cheaper simply because they aren't in standard. Standard overshadows all other formats to a ridiculous extent, and I believe it has more to do with players who invest 500 dollars in standard not investing 70 dollars in Modern.
As for myself, I would like to buy 2 or 3 boxes of Modern Masters when it comes out. I'm more excited for this set than other set I can remember magic announcing.
The problem I see with paper modern was that nobody had a collection built for it, and after the epic failure of the last 2 extended formats, a lot are unwilling to build the required collection. Std. players aren't going to quit std to play a more expensive format with less tournaments, Legacy/Vintage players certainly aren't going to sell their duals and good cards to buy crappier versions of the same cards...so who is going to go through the expense and (in paper at least) time investment required to play Modern?
The stores around here don't really carry modern cards (because nobody plays it), so building any kind of modern deck requires a very expensive stop at SCG or another online store...somehow I suspect that a modern set at $7 a pack won't change any of this, but I really hope I am wrong.
I can't speak for the others, but my reason for showing up with a goblin deck was pretty simple: I didn't have time to build a new deck.
I ended up just watching, slept too late :<
Prolly for the best my deck was still built for 1v1 anyway.
Why price of Legacy cards didn't react at all on Season 1 announcement?
Only Wasteland is higher than usual. I know med, urza drafts were not so long ago, but in fact duals, should be much higher now and they are currently at the level when med drafts finished. Even Force of Will, which will be given as a promo, should be over 100 tix due to being used in almost every legacy deck. Even Tempest block cards didn't react and there were not any temepest drafts. I don't understand it now, someone smarter may explain it to me?
In case someone were still wondering, smaug showed up in the end (only, unfortunately, too late). Hope to see you in another event, smaug!
Just registered on the site and would like to play in the commander tribal today.
What do I need to do? What room will it be held in?
thanks
Ah, I was worried the rounds might go much later.
Might have to actually go to bed soon then :<
The event takes place typically between 12pm and 3pm (at the latest and thats with 5 rounds) 2 rounds of commander swiss shouldn't take anywhere near that long. Assuming of course each game isn't set to something crazy like 60mins per player.
I want to try and catch the Tribal Commander, But I kinda have to leave for work at 16:00 CTZ.
I'm thinking this will probably end up being a problem :/
"Didnt catch the swap to multiplayer edh until just now"
Heh, it's not that easy to reach the players. I put the update in the forum, in the google sheet, and here (in the comment section for the previous article). But they are all places where you actively need to go to find out what's new. It might be useful to create a mailing list, maybe?
Glad you liked the flavor for the joined tribes. That costed me an insane amount of time, and will probably remain mostly unused, but it was fun to do. :)
I hope the Commander event will be satisfying enough, so we can bring it back a few more times next year.
Nice to see the form already filled out by a few players. :)
In the special event preference, I see your answer being "I would love to see more 2hg, commander and singleton". Was that right?
Anyway, I forgot to say that if at any time (until I'll announce that the survey is closed, which will be in several weeks) someone would want to change their answers, they can just take the survey again. When the time to put together all the answers will come, I'll count the most recent answers for each player (there's a timestamp for each submission).
Didnt catch the swap to multiplayer edh until just now, glad I saw that before showing up with Wydwen faeries tomorrow, which would have been pretty awful there. I really like the work you put into the flavorful cross-tribe creations though! May be able to adjust my favorite casual commander a little and run that thanks to your special tribe rulings.
Looks like I accurately predicted last weeks metagame, except that I thought the Punishing Fire deck would beat those decks, and apparently I was wrong about that. The rule keeping the Big Shot tribes out of those events seems fine to me. Starting to think I may have a hard time keeping up with the special event calendar though, and that's saying something since I'm pretty involved in this community. Don't know the best way to publicize it myself, just mentioning it as something to stay on top of week to week, we can't assume everyone knows and need to keep the event accessible to new players. Got some hope that Kuma's edh event will bring some crossover interest!
Well, there's a good reason that I hadn't tried Scar. I didn't even know it existed, and that effect definitely merits testing. I'll be sure to try it out and see how it works. In regards to Electrickery, I definitely understand the reasoning for having a couple in the main, the card is very powerful. I generally prefer Bolt game one, but I understand the reasoning and I'll be sure to try it out. I'm unable to access MTGO for the next week or so, as I'm in the process of upgrading my laptop, so that testing may take a little while. That's also the reason I don't have any video content at this point in time. And Wild Hunger. I know the card, I had just completely forgotten that it existed. Once again, that's another card that I believe merits testing.
Thanks for the suggestions though. I plan on eventually building with Silver Drake in mind, as it's the UW version of Kavu, and it interacts favorably with both Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion, and things like Aven Riftwatcher. With that many bounce effects I'd be more willing to dedicate more of the deck to ETB effects.
You should be able to find everything here. Leads to a broken link.
Still filling out section 1.5 of the survey (Nicely formated Vantar!)
I'm glad that my 2 losses ended up 1st and 3rd place respectively. Makes me feel a little better about beating on my friend Chris round 1 only to be out of the money. In a sense I am glad I didn't bring my Dryads xmas deck as that was doomed to do poorly vs this very unxmas like field.
Thanks again for the xmas stuff Kuma, made the event worthy attending.
Just finished and noticed the form didn't register my selection of Attending singleton tribal in this question: What special event do you like to play in the most?
That deck looks like a lot of fun, the recursion with Horned Kavu looks like a good way of playing an attrition battle. Due to the slower nature needed to get a lot of the advantages of Kavu, I have a few suggestions to battle the quicker decks of the format. Some number of electrickery absolutely needs to be in the maindeck, so much Storm is around and they are also very helpful vs Faeries, Infect, Goblins, WW. I think maybe a 2/2 split between main and side would be the way to go. I would also suggest replacing the Electrostatic Bolts with Scar. Infect and Stompie are both more popular than affinity and Scar is great in these matchups. One thing that could also be tested is using Wild Hunger instead of Colossal Might. If you more often find yourself trying to put your opponent on a clock, go with Colossal Might. If you think that you get more matchups where you will be trying to grind out advantages with Horned kavu, I would put some number of Wild Hunger in the deck.
I have to say, given a week's notice on the rules was really not enough to build something competitive. I built a dozen or so decks (different tribal variations) attempting to find something fun for myself and yet somewhat competitive and I don't think I succeeded.
Half the decks I built don't stand up to the generic wilderness decks (I mean playing against random players/groups). The other half do but aren't really especially good at it. Group dynamics have a lot to do with whether a weak deck survives. That doesn't really make for a fun experience. Pity, given a few more weeks I might have a deck worth playing.