Prize: one P9 card for the winner of each MED5 draft in the queues. That way, Wizards could rake in bucketloads of money while keeping them extra-rare (1 per 24 packs drafted), extra special, and in the hands of l33t players.
The thing is that it is totally possible to satisfy both the people who want Power available AND the people who want it to have a mystique at the same time. Here's what I would do. FTV: P9 (online only). It would sell for $199.99 and include one of each of the cards in the power 9. Each set would come with eight pieces from the alternate-art gencon power art and one piece with original art. Each set would also come with one foil piece of power. This structure would lead to 4 different tiers of power ranging from affordable to insane. non-foil gencon power would be affordable (I'd guess at about $25 bucks a pop), foil gencon power and non-foil original-art power would be more expensive ($100+ a pop) and you would have the mystique still held by foil original-art power (seeing as how there would only be one piece of original-art foil power for every 9 FTV sets sold ($1800 in store sales) the price of these to the collector would be astronomical. This would satisfy players and collectors. Player could get their power at a reasonable cost either by buying it for less than $199 as singles or by buying a FTV set and hoping to get a good foil and or original art to sell. The status classic player could have their $500 versions of the power to bling their decks out with, and the compulsive gamblers could buy FTV sets to try and get lucky with the 1-in-9 gravy train. Everyone wins!
This week's and and the last week's TNMO promo is alternate art Avacyn's Pilgrim. Copy paste didn't work so good this time.
Cool P9 speculations. Any news about ME5 coming?
Since I transitioned to paper play, I haven't really found any articles about Modern at all- nor are there any places in my area that host it. Looks like I'll be using my deck at Legacy events. Not sure how that will work.
With the release of M13 (and Liliana of the Dark Realms), I made a Birthing Pod deck around which land matters. Primeval Titan + Urborg, Tomb of Yagmoth + M13 Liliana = swinging for a whole lot. I think there's a deck out there that makes use of Liliana and the different fetch lands. Not sure about her ultimate, though...
I'm also a little surprised that no one thought to add Sublime Archangel in the tokens deck yet. It seems like a no-brainer to me. :P
Sorry, I needed to find my password (haven't used in a while) just so I could log in and give this 5 stars.
People...you really need to throw some MAJOR props at this collosal effort. I know firsthand how hard and long a good article is to write here...and this is a stellar example. In fact, I'm gonna give JustSin a ticket next time I see him online to further promote such good effort.
Imagine if this was where the bar was set for articles (main reason I stopped writing here). ?!? The page wouldn't refresh much, but it wouldn't need too...it'd be stocked full of quality articles people bookmark and re-read very often.
This article should stay at the top of the main page for AT LEAST 30 days. It is so helpful and insightful for old and new players alike.
@ psycho: the lists are ones I've taken from dailies so I take no responsibility for whats in them outside of choosing the list as an example
@ semi: the reason for the increase in players is the switch of prize from m12 to m13... you reach this cycle where m12 was out for so long the value dropped and no one really wanted it because the prize payout did not cover the entry cost... when m13 came it gave players an opportunity to end up with greater prize value than entry fee, etc.
Meh I was accused of playing a tournament ready deck today (by my winning opponent no less, who had o ringed my only two relevant permanents and had a thragtusk out with a bunch of subpar dorks) because it had some of the solar flare shell and griselbrand which I guess is everyone's big nightmare now?
And I agree that old standard formats were occasionally fairly broken but they weren't ALL broken. There was plenty of creative deckbuilding going on, but not necessarily at the top levels where money wins are most important.
Also I don't think it sad at all that people copy net decks. It is human nature to want to win and if something is proven good there is no sense in avoiding it just because it's not your build. Sure if you want to be creative (I often prefer that) go ahead, but don't hold other people to some impossible moral standard of not copying or emulating or whatever.
I used to get upset when I'd see someone plop down a super friends list and call it a rogue deck because it had 3 card changes but this is the nature of the game. Sometimes innovation takes place in tiny increments and sometimes not even at all. Sometimes there are so many choices and they all seem to carry risk that people are afraid to experiment until someone else trail blazes for them.
I don't entirely get when exactly your "back then" is, but formats have always deteriorated at ligthning speed, and moreso when they were printing whole broken blocks like Urza or even Mirrodin. I play MTG since 1994, and maybe it's because I'm not a very nostalgic type, but I never feel any yearning for, say, the period when every damned competitive deck needs to feature blue and the same 30-40 fixed slots, and creatures (aka 50% of all the existing cards) were shit "real players" would never play with. Magic was a broken (as in: badly designed) game for a lot of those times people now seem to remember through rose-colored glasses.
The fact that (where certain formats are concerned) people tend to copy decks they have seen on the Internet is very sad, but that's not an issue of the game, it's a product of the fact that Internet is way more present in the everyday life of every single person in the planet (at least, every person who might think of playing Magic) than it was 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. The situation is even "worse" with MTGO, since here you can see a decklist and have it built and running 5 minutes later.
But I mostly play Commander and Tribal Wars these days, and I can assure you: not a lot of weblists there. And with "not a lot", I mean "zero". Plus Modern, that certainly has the cloned decks issue, but has still enough exploration space that you can do well in a Modern PRE with a homebrew, even of the most bizarre variety.
I know that Richard Bland is the Team Captain for England. I also know that Brian Kibler and LSV are playing for the US team though don't know the other two members. I'm interested in the tournament but I'm not all that excited about it. I reckon it would have been more interesting to have the Top Pros from each country face-off though it would probably give an edge to the USA and Japan. I also find it interesting that they cut the worst player in the 4-man team. I assume its just for tournament logistics but in that case why not just have 3-man teams to begin with?
That's a very deep meta-analysis - you really should get paid by Wizards for that :)
Pauper is really healthy now and diverse on mtgo - you should have mentioned that the number of people participating in the event has doubled since a few weeks with no (apparent) reasons.
Thanks a lot. Really glad you enjoyed this article and found it useful. I've got a couple of articles lined up for my return from holiday so you should hopefully be seeing those once I return. Hopefully I'll be able to continue beyond that as well. Glad you are enjoying the series and your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Countermagic isn't played because you mostly CAN'T. I mean, how many tribes are able to either account for a strong blue presence or splash for a significant level of blue mana? You know how they always say that blue is the color with fewer creatures? Indeed, the non-Endangered, strongly-blue tribes are just these (in order of decreazing size): Wizard, Bird, Rogue, Merfolk, Illusion, Faerie, Shapeshifter, and Drake. You can add the Endangered ones: Artificer (34 members), Djinn (29), Serpent (23), Sphinx (23), Cephalid (15), Moonfolk (14), Leviathan (13), Fish (12), Crab (11), Ninja (10), Pirate (8), Metathran (8), Thalakos (7), Homunculus (7), Jellyfish (7), Kraken (6), Turtle (5), Squid (3), Whale (3). Most of them are essentially never played. The only consistent presence is Wizard and Merfolk (plus Human of course, as they are essentially a catch-all). Indeed, Ranth defeated Dirty's Kor-phalid Breakfast using countermagic in a Wizard build.
You can't expect for, say, Beast or Cat to splash blue only to fight combos. Because chances are, they will face aggro in most rounds, anyway. On the other hand, that's true for combo decks too: let's assume control decks start packing counterspells like you propose; should combo decks be scared out of existence by the fact that they will have, say, a 10% chance of not meeting aggro or other combos? More importantly: a control deck player who swaps mass removal for counter magic will maybe win the off-chance matchup with combo on Round 1, then lose to aggro in Round 2 and 3. Control decks need card advantage like oxygen, and in Tribal Wars card advantage is mostly attained by going 2-for-1 or more with a mass removal spell. Asking them to renounce this is asking them to give up their better chances of a positive score and just act as kamikazes against broken combos.
Anyway, I just finished the Watch List, with statistics and stuff, and it's pretty interesting to see how much these combo decks actually showed up and how well they actually went. Perception is somehow deceiving. I remand the discussion to the next article when I'll publish that.
I know Kibler is playing. Other than that? No clue. Grats on the achievement AJ, mean deck is mean. And by mean I mean it was beating up on some vicious decks of mine.
Great article, really good overview for new players. The prices are a particularly interesting guide. Is it just me though or do some of the pictures not work? The PRE list and State of the Program prices pics are blank for me. I also often can't see the meta line graph in your competitive corner articles, but I assume others can because it's a pretty obvious gap :). I'd also note that in your pie chart you have WW listed as "monowhite control".
Speaking of WW, the list you have looks a little odd to me, only 2 loyal cathar and 3 bonesplitter (more) and a singleton doomed traveller (either more or, preferably, less) all seem a little odd to me. The stompy main list looks good (although personally 16 is the sweet spot for land), but the sideboard is a bit all over the place. I can't see how naturalize isn't a strict downgrade from gleeful sabotage because you lose the 2 for 1 option (instant speed isn't that relevant), and I'm not a fan of spore frog - when you have a fog effect you don't want to be announcing your intentions! Anyway, minor points.
I believe I don't make any serious "prediction" here (I'm never actually able to foresee how archetypes develop and such), I just evaluate the strength of each card. And yes, this is mainly about the tribe system, what new toys each of them gets. How these cards impact Standard or Modern is beside the point (and again, I'm never good at predicting that. I can just register that, for instance, Thragtusk was an instant hit among pros, and I can see why, but that strictly depends on the ease with which it fitted on current builds, while other stuff would need a brand new home).
Then again, I'm aware that what we mean with "best cards" is highly debatable. Is a card only good if it sees a lot of play? Or is it good regardless? Is the best card the one that defines a new winning archetype? Or is it the one with the best design? MaRo and LSV would never agree on the best cards of any given set.
Is Trading Post the best design in M13? Absolutely. Will see pro play? Honestly, don't think so. (It's still one of the highest-priced rares, though, so there's that). Does that make it a bad card? Not at all.
ERRATA: Of course, Crimson Muckwader (aka the lonely Lizard) is a 3/2 for 2, not for 3. The verdict doesn't change, anyway: still useless enough.
Prize: one P9 card for the winner of each MED5 draft in the queues. That way, Wizards could rake in bucketloads of money while keeping them extra-rare (1 per 24 packs drafted), extra special, and in the hands of l33t players.
The thing is that it is totally possible to satisfy both the people who want Power available AND the people who want it to have a mystique at the same time. Here's what I would do. FTV: P9 (online only). It would sell for $199.99 and include one of each of the cards in the power 9. Each set would come with eight pieces from the alternate-art gencon power art and one piece with original art. Each set would also come with one foil piece of power. This structure would lead to 4 different tiers of power ranging from affordable to insane. non-foil gencon power would be affordable (I'd guess at about $25 bucks a pop), foil gencon power and non-foil original-art power would be more expensive ($100+ a pop) and you would have the mystique still held by foil original-art power (seeing as how there would only be one piece of original-art foil power for every 9 FTV sets sold ($1800 in store sales) the price of these to the collector would be astronomical. This would satisfy players and collectors. Player could get their power at a reasonable cost either by buying it for less than $199 as singles or by buying a FTV set and hoping to get a good foil and or original art to sell. The status classic player could have their $500 versions of the power to bling their decks out with, and the compulsive gamblers could buy FTV sets to try and get lucky with the 1-in-9 gravy train. Everyone wins!
This week's and and the last week's TNMO promo is alternate art Avacyn's Pilgrim. Copy paste didn't work so good this time.
Cool P9 speculations. Any news about ME5 coming?
That is the kind of comment that's not needed. It's better to not comment at all than making a comment like that.
So is this your one DE for the year where you're not complaining and whining about how bad and lucky everyone else is after you lose? Stay classy.
Since I transitioned to paper play, I haven't really found any articles about Modern at all- nor are there any places in my area that host it. Looks like I'll be using my deck at Legacy events. Not sure how that will work.
With the release of M13 (and Liliana of the Dark Realms), I made a Birthing Pod deck around which land matters. Primeval Titan + Urborg, Tomb of Yagmoth + M13 Liliana = swinging for a whole lot. I think there's a deck out there that makes use of Liliana and the different fetch lands. Not sure about her ultimate, though...
I'm also a little surprised that no one thought to add Sublime Archangel in the tokens deck yet. It seems like a no-brainer to me. :P
thank you very much man, coming from you its quite the compliment :)
WotC has pledged 18 RGD (Ravnica/Guildpact/Dissension) Draft Sets! These will be distributed 6-4-2-2-1-1-1-1.
Total Prize Pool value as of 8/16 6PM SKT: $479.10
Sorry, I needed to find my password (haven't used in a while) just so I could log in and give this 5 stars.
People...you really need to throw some MAJOR props at this collosal effort. I know firsthand how hard and long a good article is to write here...and this is a stellar example. In fact, I'm gonna give JustSin a ticket next time I see him online to further promote such good effort.
Imagine if this was where the bar was set for articles (main reason I stopped writing here). ?!? The page wouldn't refresh much, but it wouldn't need too...it'd be stocked full of quality articles people bookmark and re-read very often.
This article should stay at the top of the main page for AT LEAST 30 days. It is so helpful and insightful for old and new players alike.
Bravo JustSin, BRAVO.
In my SB for Round4 I forgot to say that I also took out 2 Thought Scour because I simply didn't know what else to cut.
thanks for the comments!
@ psycho: the lists are ones I've taken from dailies so I take no responsibility for whats in them outside of choosing the list as an example
@ semi: the reason for the increase in players is the switch of prize from m12 to m13... you reach this cycle where m12 was out for so long the value dropped and no one really wanted it because the prize payout did not cover the entry cost... when m13 came it gave players an opportunity to end up with greater prize value than entry fee, etc.
Something like this:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24323_Revisiting_Zombies_In_Le...
?
b
Reread my posts.
The game really was different then. This was not an ode to lost youth.
Meh I was accused of playing a tournament ready deck today (by my winning opponent no less, who had o ringed my only two relevant permanents and had a thragtusk out with a bunch of subpar dorks) because it had some of the solar flare shell and griselbrand which I guess is everyone's big nightmare now?
And I agree that old standard formats were occasionally fairly broken but they weren't ALL broken. There was plenty of creative deckbuilding going on, but not necessarily at the top levels where money wins are most important.
Also I don't think it sad at all that people copy net decks. It is human nature to want to win and if something is proven good there is no sense in avoiding it just because it's not your build. Sure if you want to be creative (I often prefer that) go ahead, but don't hold other people to some impossible moral standard of not copying or emulating or whatever.
I used to get upset when I'd see someone plop down a super friends list and call it a rogue deck because it had 3 card changes but this is the nature of the game. Sometimes innovation takes place in tiny increments and sometimes not even at all. Sometimes there are so many choices and they all seem to carry risk that people are afraid to experiment until someone else trail blazes for them.
I don't entirely get when exactly your "back then" is, but formats have always deteriorated at ligthning speed, and moreso when they were printing whole broken blocks like Urza or even Mirrodin. I play MTG since 1994, and maybe it's because I'm not a very nostalgic type, but I never feel any yearning for, say, the period when every damned competitive deck needs to feature blue and the same 30-40 fixed slots, and creatures (aka 50% of all the existing cards) were shit "real players" would never play with. Magic was a broken (as in: badly designed) game for a lot of those times people now seem to remember through rose-colored glasses.
The fact that (where certain formats are concerned) people tend to copy decks they have seen on the Internet is very sad, but that's not an issue of the game, it's a product of the fact that Internet is way more present in the everyday life of every single person in the planet (at least, every person who might think of playing Magic) than it was 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. The situation is even "worse" with MTGO, since here you can see a decklist and have it built and running 5 minutes later.
But I mostly play Commander and Tribal Wars these days, and I can assure you: not a lot of weblists there. And with "not a lot", I mean "zero". Plus Modern, that certainly has the cloned decks issue, but has still enough exploration space that you can do well in a Modern PRE with a homebrew, even of the most bizarre variety.
You guys do realize that what you're saying is basically, "I liked Magic better back in those times because I was younger?" :)
Good podcast as always!
I know that Richard Bland is the Team Captain for England. I also know that Brian Kibler and LSV are playing for the US team though don't know the other two members. I'm interested in the tournament but I'm not all that excited about it. I reckon it would have been more interesting to have the Top Pros from each country face-off though it would probably give an edge to the USA and Japan. I also find it interesting that they cut the worst player in the 4-man team. I assume its just for tournament logistics but in that case why not just have 3-man teams to begin with?
That's a very deep meta-analysis - you really should get paid by Wizards for that :)
Pauper is really healthy now and diverse on mtgo - you should have mentioned that the number of people participating in the event has doubled since a few weeks with no (apparent) reasons.
Good article!
Thanks a lot. Really glad you enjoyed this article and found it useful. I've got a couple of articles lined up for my return from holiday so you should hopefully be seeing those once I return. Hopefully I'll be able to continue beyond that as well. Glad you are enjoying the series and your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Countermagic isn't played because you mostly CAN'T. I mean, how many tribes are able to either account for a strong blue presence or splash for a significant level of blue mana? You know how they always say that blue is the color with fewer creatures? Indeed, the non-Endangered, strongly-blue tribes are just these (in order of decreazing size): Wizard, Bird, Rogue, Merfolk, Illusion, Faerie, Shapeshifter, and Drake. You can add the Endangered ones: Artificer (34 members), Djinn (29), Serpent (23), Sphinx (23), Cephalid (15), Moonfolk (14), Leviathan (13), Fish (12), Crab (11), Ninja (10), Pirate (8), Metathran (8), Thalakos (7), Homunculus (7), Jellyfish (7), Kraken (6), Turtle (5), Squid (3), Whale (3). Most of them are essentially never played. The only consistent presence is Wizard and Merfolk (plus Human of course, as they are essentially a catch-all). Indeed, Ranth defeated Dirty's Kor-phalid Breakfast using countermagic in a Wizard build.
You can't expect for, say, Beast or Cat to splash blue only to fight combos. Because chances are, they will face aggro in most rounds, anyway. On the other hand, that's true for combo decks too: let's assume control decks start packing counterspells like you propose; should combo decks be scared out of existence by the fact that they will have, say, a 10% chance of not meeting aggro or other combos? More importantly: a control deck player who swaps mass removal for counter magic will maybe win the off-chance matchup with combo on Round 1, then lose to aggro in Round 2 and 3. Control decks need card advantage like oxygen, and in Tribal Wars card advantage is mostly attained by going 2-for-1 or more with a mass removal spell. Asking them to renounce this is asking them to give up their better chances of a positive score and just act as kamikazes against broken combos.
Anyway, I just finished the Watch List, with statistics and stuff, and it's pretty interesting to see how much these combo decks actually showed up and how well they actually went. Perception is somehow deceiving. I remand the discussion to the next article when I'll publish that.
I know Kibler is playing. Other than that? No clue. Grats on the achievement AJ, mean deck is mean. And by mean I mean it was beating up on some vicious decks of mine.
Muckraker = bad sedge troll. Nuff said about that.
Great article, really good overview for new players. The prices are a particularly interesting guide. Is it just me though or do some of the pictures not work? The PRE list and State of the Program prices pics are blank for me. I also often can't see the meta line graph in your competitive corner articles, but I assume others can because it's a pretty obvious gap :). I'd also note that in your pie chart you have WW listed as "monowhite control".
Speaking of WW, the list you have looks a little odd to me, only 2 loyal cathar and 3 bonesplitter (more) and a singleton doomed traveller (either more or, preferably, less) all seem a little odd to me. The stompy main list looks good (although personally 16 is the sweet spot for land), but the sideboard is a bit all over the place. I can't see how naturalize isn't a strict downgrade from gleeful sabotage because you lose the 2 for 1 option (instant speed isn't that relevant), and I'm not a fan of spore frog - when you have a fog effect you don't want to be announcing your intentions! Anyway, minor points.
I believe I don't make any serious "prediction" here (I'm never actually able to foresee how archetypes develop and such), I just evaluate the strength of each card. And yes, this is mainly about the tribe system, what new toys each of them gets. How these cards impact Standard or Modern is beside the point (and again, I'm never good at predicting that. I can just register that, for instance, Thragtusk was an instant hit among pros, and I can see why, but that strictly depends on the ease with which it fitted on current builds, while other stuff would need a brand new home).
Then again, I'm aware that what we mean with "best cards" is highly debatable. Is a card only good if it sees a lot of play? Or is it good regardless? Is the best card the one that defines a new winning archetype? Or is it the one with the best design? MaRo and LSV would never agree on the best cards of any given set.
Is Trading Post the best design in M13? Absolutely. Will see pro play? Honestly, don't think so. (It's still one of the highest-priced rares, though, so there's that). Does that make it a bad card? Not at all.
ERRATA: Of course, Crimson Muckwader (aka the lonely Lizard) is a 3/2 for 2, not for 3. The verdict doesn't change, anyway: still useless enough.