You can do a better job on erasing the names but I dont see the point. Everyone knew that group of players and that deck. Seems funny that they faced off with 4x Serra turn 1.
Yes, there are a lot of broken Turn 0 and Turn 1 plays in Classic. You have to *work* at most, if not all, of them. By work I mean something *MORE* than lay a land and play a creature. I don't mind a whammy opening combo at all. It took effort to put it together. Plus a bit of luck on the shuffler. Not a problem.
My feelings on this card, and my reactions to it's play, are my own, and many people disagree with them. That's fine by me! :) I'm a "free speech" kinda guy. You are welcome to play whatever you like, however you like. Who am I to judge? I can only do for myself.
As far as the blockout of names goes... dunno... seemed like a good idea at the time (Screenshot was 1/11/11)
I've encountered a few different players who set up a table without posting a description or advertisement in main chat who then complain about the first thing you do saying you are violating their table rules and then block you and stall til they time out declaring it their win.
For such things as your first play being to path to exile their turn one reanimated Jin-Gitaxious.
Why should Legacy/Eternal players care any more about the stability of the client than Standard and Limited players? The program affects everyone equally; if Standard and Limited can thrive on MTGO, in spite of the client's shortcomings, so too can Eternal formats. The reason that Eternal formats have failed in the past has little to do with the client.
Computers will crash, there is nothing that can be done about it. The Client has been working perfectly for me for so many years, there is nothing wrong with it.
I can say with relative certainty that prizes are indeed a big part of the problem. I have lots of things to do, and playing a deck that costs nearly $1k for thirty bucks worth of packs filled with cards that are useless for my format is not exactly a good incentive for me to give up 3 hours of my weekend/afternoon. Now if we got more valuable packs filled with stuff I could actually use, that would be a very different story.
Before any of those hypothetical scenarios comes about, Wizards as a company needs to do a far better job with its magic online client if they want to see eternal formats going anywhere. I don't believe this is an issue of prizes because, to me, if you can dump thousands of dollars into a deck, 7 packs of standard cards aren't going to thrill you. I believe Legacy players stay away from online play because the program simply isn't good enough. Who wants the thing to crash when you're hitting Tendrils for 80? Who wants the server to break when you're 3-0 and just on the cusp on taking home first place? These things have happened before. Wizards needs to do better with the client itself if they want a larger audience to stick around.
And fair enough, though I know you visit CQ Pete (your last login date was the date of the article) so I hope you can see where I might be a little peeved. No harm done though, and I believe you.
Caliban - absolutely I agree with you. In my defense, one of these articles was written just two weeks ago, and I had sold out of MTGO during the period when you wrote yours, so I hope you'll hopefully believe me when i also say that I didn't see your article.
OK so what we now have are three (and permit me to say, three people's who's opinions and ideas I respect as being knowledgeable) separate people who've all come to essentially he same conclusion on their own about how to release the P9, with some varying outliers on content. That's pretty remarkable. Someone at WoTC, take note!
PS Pete - WOTC also can't use all the good stuff or they'll will never again be able to sell classic drafts as a means to "win lotteries" for the good stuff - a concept which is still bringing in extra dough for them. What's really great about having MED drafts once a year is it give the market time to raise the value of FOW right back up to the same value it was the last time they offered it.
Mike, I hadn't read your article. I barely had time to get my own done. If I had, I'da shared the credit.
I'm not wedded to the card choices, I just found that you cannot use all the good stuff, or the value gets way too high. Besides, I would change the cards every six months, and get the stuff I left out sometime in the future.
Now now, dangerlinto, no need to get snippy, we're all in this together in bringing the Power 9 and other 800 to MTGO. Good ideas are good ideas, and all of the basic ideas have been discussed in one form or another for years.
I mean, I'd like to see someone do a comparison of what it would cost across the board like I did for standard and modern. Standard cards are pretty pricey these days too.
So what's reasonable? I'm afraid that definition is highly dependent on your situation and point of view. If you had been collecting these cards since Mirage's release 7 years ago, you'd probably have found almost all the cards at a "reasonable" price.
There are so many factors to consider, it's very hard to put it all in one post - long story short - reasonable for *some people* buying in from scratch right now probably isn't going to be close to what WoTC is going to see as reasonable.
I especially like the part where you essentially passed off my idea (http://www.classicquarter.com/articles/062_121127.asp) as your own by taking the time to list off all the cards you'd put into the packs. I guess that would take about two weeks.
At any rate, I'd love it if MTGO just fired off more Jace's in an MED5. I have a really old, ugly hat that needs eating if that happens though.
If you're going to BLOCK someone because they played a card in a game you set up, you really should say something in the description about what you do not want to play against. There's no reason to block a player because they broke the special rules you didn't tell them about.
My opinion on the Damnation vs BSZ in Tribal debate is both. If you're planning on a sweeper control strategy, go in big: your opponent will provide a target rich environment unless the creatures in his deck are chaff padding a combo win, but that's a whole other issue.
One thing: I do not get why you covered up the names by the Avatars in the first screen dump. But you did not hide the names in the chat and below the chat? :-)
You're assuming a lot. That the person you are quoting isn't already naked.
Though I loled at your post I think you might have missed the point since no one is going to complain about Serra in classic 2hg. Not even the naked pretend-player/whiner.
"Hi. I don't really play Classic, but I pretend to in the multiplayer room. If you play this card I will whine, cry, and throw a little tantrum. Nevermind that it isn't actually a good card, or even competitive in a format nobody takes seriously. You can Tendrils me for 80 on turn 1, or Bazaar dredge your entire deck into play and kill me with a bunch of zombies, but heaven forbid anyone play Serra Ascendant! I will block you so fast you don't even know. Oh and by the way, if you keep making me mad there is a good chance I will get naked."
You can do a better job on erasing the names but I dont see the point. Everyone knew that group of players and that deck. Seems funny that they faced off with 4x Serra turn 1.
Yes, there are a lot of broken Turn 0 and Turn 1 plays in Classic. You have to *work* at most, if not all, of them. By work I mean something *MORE* than lay a land and play a creature. I don't mind a whammy opening combo at all. It took effort to put it together. Plus a bit of luck on the shuffler. Not a problem.
I also spent almost two years dealing with this card on a daily basis, starting 8/10. It left an indelible loathing. Soory, but that's me. On the bright side, I hate Lumie almost as much.
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75846/19212894/The_Return_of...
My feelings on this card, and my reactions to it's play, are my own, and many people disagree with them. That's fine by me! :) I'm a "free speech" kinda guy. You are welcome to play whatever you like, however you like. Who am I to judge? I can only do for myself.
As far as the blockout of names goes... dunno... seemed like a good idea at the time (Screenshot was 1/11/11)
I've encountered a few different players who set up a table without posting a description or advertisement in main chat who then complain about the first thing you do saying you are violating their table rules and then block you and stall til they time out declaring it their win.
For such things as your first play being to path to exile their turn one reanimated Jin-Gitaxious.
As one of the many (potentially intoxicated) nude magic players who don't care about a 6/6 flying lifelinking 1 drop in classic 2hg.
*waits for Pox to resolve*
I'd love to do this but I suspect I will be unavailable. :/ Grats on getting this going though. Blippy the Grand Poobah.12 pages booklets
Why should Legacy/Eternal players care any more about the stability of the client than Standard and Limited players? The program affects everyone equally; if Standard and Limited can thrive on MTGO, in spite of the client's shortcomings, so too can Eternal formats. The reason that Eternal formats have failed in the past has little to do with the client.
Decent analysis, Rexdart, but you missed one of the best edict effects: Chainer's Edict, which gives you two for one.
Computers will crash, there is nothing that can be done about it. The Client has been working perfectly for me for so many years, there is nothing wrong with it.
I can say with relative certainty that prizes are indeed a big part of the problem. I have lots of things to do, and playing a deck that costs nearly $1k for thirty bucks worth of packs filled with cards that are useless for my format is not exactly a good incentive for me to give up 3 hours of my weekend/afternoon. Now if we got more valuable packs filled with stuff I could actually use, that would be a very different story.
Before any of those hypothetical scenarios comes about, Wizards as a company needs to do a far better job with its magic online client if they want to see eternal formats going anywhere. I don't believe this is an issue of prizes because, to me, if you can dump thousands of dollars into a deck, 7 packs of standard cards aren't going to thrill you. I believe Legacy players stay away from online play because the program simply isn't good enough. Who wants the thing to crash when you're hitting Tendrils for 80? Who wants the server to break when you're 3-0 and just on the cusp on taking home first place? These things have happened before. Wizards needs to do better with the client itself if they want a larger audience to stick around.
You could just call the special packs "Eternity Packs".
I didn't realize it was mandatory.
And fair enough, though I know you visit CQ Pete (your last login date was the date of the article) so I hope you can see where I might be a little peeved. No harm done though, and I believe you.
Caliban - absolutely I agree with you. In my defense, one of these articles was written just two weeks ago, and I had sold out of MTGO during the period when you wrote yours, so I hope you'll hopefully believe me when i also say that I didn't see your article.
OK so what we now have are three (and permit me to say, three people's who's opinions and ideas I respect as being knowledgeable) separate people who've all come to essentially he same conclusion on their own about how to release the P9, with some varying outliers on content. That's pretty remarkable. Someone at WoTC, take note!
PS Pete - WOTC also can't use all the good stuff or they'll will never again be able to sell classic drafts as a means to "win lotteries" for the good stuff - a concept which is still bringing in extra dough for them. What's really great about having MED drafts once a year is it give the market time to raise the value of FOW right back up to the same value it was the last time they offered it.
Mike, I hadn't read your article. I barely had time to get my own done. If I had, I'da shared the credit.
I'm not wedded to the card choices, I just found that you cannot use all the good stuff, or the value gets way too high. Besides, I would change the cards every six months, and get the stuff I left out sometime in the future.
Now now, dangerlinto, no need to get snippy, we're all in this together in bringing the Power 9 and other 800 to MTGO. Good ideas are good ideas, and all of the basic ideas have been discussed in one form or another for years.
I could equally well point to my unfinished series here: http://puremtgo.com/articles/masters-edition-5-what-it-should-be-part-1 as having the same basic idea for undraftable packs filled with the 800 cards as bonus.
Pete, awesome article! I question a few of your specific card choices, but I think the idea here is nicely presented and refined.
You forgot to bash Ted Knutson like you did two previous weeks for buying up duals and then taking a loss on them.
I mean, I'd like to see someone do a comparison of what it would cost across the board like I did for standard and modern. Standard cards are pretty pricey these days too.
So what's reasonable? I'm afraid that definition is highly dependent on your situation and point of view. If you had been collecting these cards since Mirage's release 7 years ago, you'd probably have found almost all the cards at a "reasonable" price.
There are so many factors to consider, it's very hard to put it all in one post - long story short - reasonable for *some people* buying in from scratch right now probably isn't going to be close to what WoTC is going to see as reasonable.
I especially like the part where you essentially passed off my idea (http://www.classicquarter.com/articles/062_121127.asp) as your own by taking the time to list off all the cards you'd put into the packs. I guess that would take about two weeks.
At any rate, I'd love it if MTGO just fired off more Jace's in an MED5. I have a really old, ugly hat that needs eating if that happens though.
Great article. Kudos to you for doing an honest analysis including proxies - how Vintage is really played these days.
I'm still hoping for an ME5 with P9 as Mythics and Force of Will reprint to bring down the prices online to even more reasonable levels.
If you're going to BLOCK someone because they played a card in a game you set up, you really should say something in the description about what you do not want to play against. There's no reason to block a player because they broke the special rules you didn't tell them about.
My opinion on the Damnation vs BSZ in Tribal debate is both. If you're planning on a sweeper control strategy, go in big: your opponent will provide a target rich environment unless the creatures in his deck are chaff padding a combo win, but that's a whole other issue.
Nice article. I liked reading it.
One thing: I do not get why you covered up the names by the Avatars in the first screen dump. But you did not hide the names in the chat and below the chat? :-)
You're assuming a lot. That the person you are quoting isn't already naked.
Though I loled at your post I think you might have missed the point since no one is going to complain about Serra in classic 2hg. Not even the naked pretend-player/whiner.
So you play 2HG Classic, right....just get two Countersliver decks together.
"Hi. I don't really play Classic, but I pretend to in the multiplayer room. If you play this card I will whine, cry, and throw a little tantrum. Nevermind that it isn't actually a good card, or even competitive in a format nobody takes seriously. You can Tendrils me for 80 on turn 1, or Bazaar dredge your entire deck into play and kill me with a bunch of zombies, but heaven forbid anyone play Serra Ascendant! I will block you so fast you don't even know. Oh and by the way, if you keep making me mad there is a good chance I will get naked."