And yes, one of the reasons LD was reduced to the current state by WotC (and since a long while: Wasteland ceased to be T1 in 1999) is that it was pushing players away from the game.
Your example isn't correct at all: the green-white aggro player might draw into a single card capable of turn the game in his favor (a sweeper of his own, a removal, a recursion, a combo piece, the uncounterable threat that will win him the game, anything). (Plus, an aggro player who knows he's facing wrath effects and still empties his hand is just a moron). You're not locked out of the game by a sweeper, this concept makes no sense. It happens that you win the game with a well-timed sweeper vs. the right deck, but it's also happen you win the game with a well-timed Goblin Bushwhacker.
Why are you putting Tectonic Edge against Gaea's Cradle? An environment with Gaea's Cradle has Wasteland, and that's fine. I was talking about bringing back Wasteland in Standard and Modern.
Ghost Quarter is more powerful than what's accounted for. You just have to be more creative (which is the whole point with cards like Wasteland: with them, you don't need to think). And against certain decks, Ghost Quarter = Strip Mine. That's the punishment they deserve for running all nonbasics (Blood Moon as well, of course). And the engine with Crucible and Ghost Quarter can still be lethal, while not being broken.
And since you had one match like that, you're going to think ALL your matches will be like that from now on, despite the fact that elsewhere there's people who never saw a single FoW in Tribal in 2 years? Free to use this logic if you like, but sounds weird to me.
huh weird...I was looking at the list, then reading the text then going "huh didn't see it" scrolled back up, didn't see it and posted. Must have scrolled too far.
I use Camtasia Studio to record all my drafts. It's pretty easy to use and fairly user-friendly; though it has crashed a few times on me, but it always has a recovery version saved.
Since people are drafting triple AVR, it will be drafted more than third sets in the "Big, small, small." Scheme. On par with Rise, from Zendikar block, perhaps slightly more or less, depending on the fun level.
Worth noting: The ruling for paper Cavern of Souls has been reversed, making it in-line with both common sense and the design intent of the card, as stated by R&D. It was originally ruled that a player got colorless mana unless announced otherwise, and then just a few days later the ruling was reversed so if someone taps Cavern in paying for a creature of the named type, it is now an assumed that they used it for counter-spell preventing mana unless they announce otherwise.
I have seen this compared to playing a draw spell that says "target player draws X cards" and then drawing the cards without specifically announcing that you're targeting yourself. Whether or not the "common sense" short cuts should apply is sort of the crux of the discussion. If you favor skill-intensive play, perhaps you'd prefer that you announce every nuance of every effect. I can respect that, but realize there are elements of the game that would be mired in drudgery if you subscribe to the letter of that law. Conversely, too many short-cuts allow for sloppy play. "Judge, he just threw that spell in the yard, I have no clue what's going on..." "Oh, I thought it was obvious that I'd do the most beneficial course of action." I can respect that worry, but again, without some common sense you'd need to verbally pass priority at the end of every phase.
Interesting that you editorialize and say "Which is the right ruling for a lot of reasons not worth debating here, on a MTGO-only site." At the time you wrote the article, that was true. Now, not so much.
If I was to add my two cents, I think it's silly that someone would build a deck using Cavern of Souls, name the correct creature type, attempt to cast a creature of the named type against a deck that's showing open blue mana (or other colors, in very rare cases), and then there be some question as to whether or not they intended to use the "uncounterable" clause... I mean really? This seems pretty clear cut, and I'm glad the ruling stands the way it does.
Regardless, great article. Thanks a ton for putting these together. I don't post often, but I read pretty much every week.
Well I no longer use paper, mtgo is my only thing I do for my carbon footprint. I have no clue when it would come to tournament play. When I did play paper those issues were always dealt by the ol' house rule effect. Some houses were different than others.
The problem I had wasn't Wasteland or Force by themselves, it's when you put those two together that the game becomes abysmally boring to the point where I don't even wanna bother. I'm not going to play combo or play a normal legacy deck, mostly because I already hate the format to begin with. Everything is too powerful and usually it's a toss up as to who wins or not- it's just the luck of your matchup and the cards you draw. In the Tribal events, it was always different for me because there was actually some skill involved. Do you drop your second Gemhide Sliver or keep it in hand to play after a sweeper? These are the sorts of decisions that made the game fun. But the match I had- my land was destroyed turn 1, I had one other land in hand and I was facing a control deck. At that point, I didn't even care if I could win or not. I just wanted out.
Tec-Edge would be fine if it said 2, or maybe even 3 lands. 4 is dumb.
Obviously land-d is dangerous, but Wasteland has been played in formats that also had some mix of Sinkhole, Stifle, Stone Rain, Avalanche Riders, etc.
We don't have these cards, and some of our standard/block nonbasics are among the strongest in the history of MTG (non-Academy, non-library class). A card like Wasteland (a.e. a more aggressive version of Tec Edge, or a less generous version of Ghost Quarter that only let you search the top 5 cards of your library or something) would be fine in this format.
Also, Goblin Guide and White Knight are sweet cards. Why would that be a bad thing!
My Type 1 deck in 1996 ran 4 Sinkhole, 4 Strip Mine (it wasn't restricted yet), 4 Hymn (which often acts as an LD spell), and 4 Hypnotic Specter (which also could mana screw somebody if you got it down turn 1.). This was often effective because people played fewer mana sources than they do now, but since Null Rod didn't exist yet they were occasionally bailed out by their artifact mana. These days such a deck isn't even playable, because mana curve and mana sources are much better understood, and there are easier ways in Type 1 to lock someone out of a game.
I never heard of anyone quitting the game back then because of LD strategies. No strategy was oppressively powerful to that degree until Tolarian Academy, after I had already quit so I can't speak to that. (FWIW I quit bc of what I thought was a powering DOWN of core sets and the standard environment around 5th edition, not wanting to play Type 2, and the decline of my local Type 1 scene.)
People hate LD only because when it manages to lock them out of a game it's so obvious about it. Some new player with a green-white aggro deck will effectively lose the game when his control opponent casts Wrath, bc he has no reach, but even though he's really dead he's still casting spells and might feel like he's still playing. The turns where he's really dead but still "doing something" might at first seem more fun than having no lands, but only until you get good enough to realize that your plays are meaningless. A mono-black infect deck facing down a Gideon after a board wipe is just as dead as if they had no lands in play.
I also think Tec Edge is too weak at fighting utility lands bc it requires them to have 4 lands in play. That won't help against Gaea's Cradle in elves, nor a "natural" 3 land Urzatron draw, for instance. The activation cost otoh is probably a fair drawback, I wouldn't mind seeing a compromise somewhere between Wasteland and Tec Edge get printed down the road. Ghost Quarter is just a complete joke, absent tricks like combining it with Aven Mindcensor.
That's the route MaRo and friends took. Probably my view as well. The judges tend to punish players when they forget things, though. And maybe players should just focus more on what they're doing. On MTGO, the game sometimes plays for us (like in this case), sometimes against us (when a wrong click isn't recoverable: it would be like if in paper Magic, putting your hand on a card meant you have to play it now). We should pay more attention, is all.
"strategies I enjoy": I think that's the key to your reasoning re: Wasteland. It would not be a solution, it would be a different, vastly superior problem. As you said it would suppress some decks, and that's never a good thing however you look at it. And the standard Wasteland deck would just be unstoppable. Titan.dek (whatever that is, Kessig? Not exactly a 90% winner. The former Valakut? It mainly existed in the age of Caw-Blade, which WAS a 90% winner; Valakut's semi-undisputed reign lasted about 3 months) would have no way to answer it, and will just be pushed out of existence. That's not a better balance, that's taking one strategy and replace it with another.
See, Wasteland isn't "a little LD". Wasteland is a LD-heavy strategy, and encourages to go down that path more. I was playing when there were Sinkhole/Nether Void decks. Have fun with them. I didn't. People quit Magic in mass because of them. WotC will go out of business before allowing those kinds of decks again.
Easy LD is fine and necessary to get rid of problematic lands. That's Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter for you. They're good designs. Wasteland isn't. It tried to correct Strip Mine, but failed to identify its real problem. And pushing players into playing monocolored with basic lands only? Another good way to make Magic dumber and less appealing. These days, a good chunk of the cards have fun with interactions between different colors of your deck. Take those out, and you'll reduce Magic to Goblin Guides and White Knights.
On the other hand, your analysis of FoW is absolutely on the spot. :)
I have really grown to despise the "battlecruiser magic" of current standard, and I like the fact that cards like Wasteland prevent a format from turning into nothing but people throwing haymakers at each other. A little LD would have helped cure the Titan problem quite admirably this past year. And in the absence of vial, it's not as if goblins and merfolk can really abuse Wasteland and Port like in real legacy, just suppress some of the decks that get too greedy with colors and fill up with 5-6 cmc drops -- and not even all of those decks, since treefolk, which I see everywhere in the JFF room, is 90% basic forests and seemingly has two Bosk Bannerets in every opening hand ever.
Wasteland also incidentally helps strategies I enjoy like threshold and cards like KotR and Terravore. I realize why some are not fans, but legacy "control" decks manage to get to 4 lands fine by playing around it, or using Stifle, and if you really expect more than 4-5 lands in play without trickery or a ramp subtheme, well this is still legacy :-).
Wasteland's relative absence seems more noticeable than FoW. The absence of FoW rears it's head only whenever some crazy combo deck ported from real legacy shows up. But hardly anybody plays Daze either, which would do much the same thing in most games against combo, especially game 1 when they forget to play around it. I think most folks just get complacent and don't expect those combo decks, then they show up and go 4-0, then disappear into the night again. So FoW is good about once every two months, for a single tournament, not enough to warrant inclusion even if everyone owned them, except in a few blue tempo decks where it would be fine just countering a removal spell after tapping out for a threat.
Will AVR be around longer than the normal third set because of m13? I want to buy some of the good stuff up this week if AVR is going to be the normal third set release. Help me out guys!
When I said flashing back Cruel Ultimatum is one of the most powerful things you can do in Standard, what I meant was it's one of the most powerful things you can do in Modern. Proofreading fail.
I got mine (singular, but it's all I need) at 22. :)
I agree more with you than with Rex. There's a reason LD has always been the major source of hate for players.
On the topic of the meta currently, and seemingly, having lost interest in Elves & Goblins, I believe that's just a very momentary thing. The main reason is simple, anyway: we just had a full block with not a single Elf, Goblin, or Merfolk. Therefore, no new toys to play with, and plenty of different toys to play with (I expect soulbond to be the next best thing in tribal very soon). Ravnica will probably fix that, creating a new cycle.
1) I don't think a format that is dominated by one type of deck (you suggested aggro in this case) is desirable. One of the reasons I stopped being devoted to Saturdays 1pm play tribal wars is because of the incredible amount of easy.decs that were being brought. If Wasteland were to help budget aggro (goblins and other similar style decks) win even more that would be a bad thing.
Thankfully the same people throwing together easy.dec typically can't afford Wastelands too. Also thankfully the meta has shifted from easy.dec to more intriguing styles of decks though aggro still has a dominating effect.
I don't think Wastelands is an auto 4x in every tribal wars legacy deck either. I think it really depends on your plan.
2) Wasteland really hoses budget mana sources of multicolor decks. Those are the ones that play Rav bounce lands and lands that come into play tapped, etc. Having a reasonable hand of 3 lands + 4 cards suddenly becomes unreasonable in the face of Wasteland, + Wasteland.
Now the guy running 4x Crucible, 4x Wasteland, 4x Loam needs other decks to slow down so they can get their mana hose lock in. But in general Wasteland hoses the slower players anyway. The fast players don't bother with multi lands for the most part relying instead on consistent fast beats, hoping to win before they get swept. Not sure how Wasteland would help against that.
BTW The cost did drop momentarily last month or so to around $25 per and then boomeranged back up.
I would have probably insulted you in 1996. :P
And yes, one of the reasons LD was reduced to the current state by WotC (and since a long while: Wasteland ceased to be T1 in 1999) is that it was pushing players away from the game.
Your example isn't correct at all: the green-white aggro player might draw into a single card capable of turn the game in his favor (a sweeper of his own, a removal, a recursion, a combo piece, the uncounterable threat that will win him the game, anything). (Plus, an aggro player who knows he's facing wrath effects and still empties his hand is just a moron). You're not locked out of the game by a sweeper, this concept makes no sense. It happens that you win the game with a well-timed sweeper vs. the right deck, but it's also happen you win the game with a well-timed Goblin Bushwhacker.
Why are you putting Tectonic Edge against Gaea's Cradle? An environment with Gaea's Cradle has Wasteland, and that's fine. I was talking about bringing back Wasteland in Standard and Modern.
Ghost Quarter is more powerful than what's accounted for. You just have to be more creative (which is the whole point with cards like Wasteland: with them, you don't need to think). And against certain decks, Ghost Quarter = Strip Mine. That's the punishment they deserve for running all nonbasics (Blood Moon as well, of course). And the engine with Crucible and Ghost Quarter can still be lethal, while not being broken.
And since you had one match like that, you're going to think ALL your matches will be like that from now on, despite the fact that elsewhere there's people who never saw a single FoW in Tribal in 2 years? Free to use this logic if you like, but sounds weird to me.
huh weird...I was looking at the list, then reading the text then going "huh didn't see it" scrolled back up, didn't see it and posted. Must have scrolled too far.
Hey,
I use Camtasia Studio to record all my drafts. It's pretty easy to use and fairly user-friendly; though it has crashed a few times on me, but it always has a recovery version saved.
Since people are drafting triple AVR, it will be drafted more than third sets in the "Big, small, small." Scheme. On par with Rise, from Zendikar block, perhaps slightly more or less, depending on the fun level.
Worth noting: The ruling for paper Cavern of Souls has been reversed, making it in-line with both common sense and the design intent of the card, as stated by R&D. It was originally ruled that a player got colorless mana unless announced otherwise, and then just a few days later the ruling was reversed so if someone taps Cavern in paying for a creature of the named type, it is now an assumed that they used it for counter-spell preventing mana unless they announce otherwise.
I have seen this compared to playing a draw spell that says "target player draws X cards" and then drawing the cards without specifically announcing that you're targeting yourself. Whether or not the "common sense" short cuts should apply is sort of the crux of the discussion. If you favor skill-intensive play, perhaps you'd prefer that you announce every nuance of every effect. I can respect that, but realize there are elements of the game that would be mired in drudgery if you subscribe to the letter of that law. Conversely, too many short-cuts allow for sloppy play. "Judge, he just threw that spell in the yard, I have no clue what's going on..." "Oh, I thought it was obvious that I'd do the most beneficial course of action." I can respect that worry, but again, without some common sense you'd need to verbally pass priority at the end of every phase.
Interesting that you editorialize and say "Which is the right ruling for a lot of reasons not worth debating here, on a MTGO-only site." At the time you wrote the article, that was true. Now, not so much.
If I was to add my two cents, I think it's silly that someone would build a deck using Cavern of Souls, name the correct creature type, attempt to cast a creature of the named type against a deck that's showing open blue mana (or other colors, in very rare cases), and then there be some question as to whether or not they intended to use the "uncounterable" clause... I mean really? This seems pretty clear cut, and I'm glad the ruling stands the way it does.
Regardless, great article. Thanks a ton for putting these together. I don't post often, but I read pretty much every week.
I guess I mean will it be drafted more than other third sets?
Well I no longer use paper, mtgo is my only thing I do for my carbon footprint. I have no clue when it would come to tournament play. When I did play paper those issues were always dealt by the ol' house rule effect. Some houses were different than others.
The problem I had wasn't Wasteland or Force by themselves, it's when you put those two together that the game becomes abysmally boring to the point where I don't even wanna bother. I'm not going to play combo or play a normal legacy deck, mostly because I already hate the format to begin with. Everything is too powerful and usually it's a toss up as to who wins or not- it's just the luck of your matchup and the cards you draw. In the Tribal events, it was always different for me because there was actually some skill involved. Do you drop your second Gemhide Sliver or keep it in hand to play after a sweeper? These are the sorts of decisions that made the game fun. But the match I had- my land was destroyed turn 1, I had one other land in hand and I was facing a control deck. At that point, I didn't even care if I could win or not. I just wanted out.
Wasteland + Crucible of Worlds is neither fair nor fun. Ditto with Loam.
Looks like it's in there to me.
Hello... I enjoy all the draft video blogs on this site. Can you tell me what program you use to capture video? Thanks. :)
Wasteland is a fair and fun card.
Anyone who says otherwise is too laid back.
Tec-Edge would be fine if it said 2, or maybe even 3 lands. 4 is dumb.
Obviously land-d is dangerous, but Wasteland has been played in formats that also had some mix of Sinkhole, Stifle, Stone Rain, Avalanche Riders, etc.
We don't have these cards, and some of our standard/block nonbasics are among the strongest in the history of MTG (non-Academy, non-library class). A card like Wasteland (a.e. a more aggressive version of Tec Edge, or a less generous version of Ghost Quarter that only let you search the top 5 cards of your library or something) would be fine in this format.
Also, Goblin Guide and White Knight are sweet cards. Why would that be a bad thing!
My Type 1 deck in 1996 ran 4 Sinkhole, 4 Strip Mine (it wasn't restricted yet), 4 Hymn (which often acts as an LD spell), and 4 Hypnotic Specter (which also could mana screw somebody if you got it down turn 1.). This was often effective because people played fewer mana sources than they do now, but since Null Rod didn't exist yet they were occasionally bailed out by their artifact mana. These days such a deck isn't even playable, because mana curve and mana sources are much better understood, and there are easier ways in Type 1 to lock someone out of a game.
I never heard of anyone quitting the game back then because of LD strategies. No strategy was oppressively powerful to that degree until Tolarian Academy, after I had already quit so I can't speak to that. (FWIW I quit bc of what I thought was a powering DOWN of core sets and the standard environment around 5th edition, not wanting to play Type 2, and the decline of my local Type 1 scene.)
People hate LD only because when it manages to lock them out of a game it's so obvious about it. Some new player with a green-white aggro deck will effectively lose the game when his control opponent casts Wrath, bc he has no reach, but even though he's really dead he's still casting spells and might feel like he's still playing. The turns where he's really dead but still "doing something" might at first seem more fun than having no lands, but only until you get good enough to realize that your plays are meaningless. A mono-black infect deck facing down a Gideon after a board wipe is just as dead as if they had no lands in play.
I also think Tec Edge is too weak at fighting utility lands bc it requires them to have 4 lands in play. That won't help against Gaea's Cradle in elves, nor a "natural" 3 land Urzatron draw, for instance. The activation cost otoh is probably a fair drawback, I wouldn't mind seeing a compromise somewhere between Wasteland and Tec Edge get printed down the road. Ghost Quarter is just a complete joke, absent tricks like combining it with Aven Mindcensor.
That's the route MaRo and friends took. Probably my view as well. The judges tend to punish players when they forget things, though. And maybe players should just focus more on what they're doing. On MTGO, the game sometimes plays for us (like in this case), sometimes against us (when a wrong click isn't recoverable: it would be like if in paper Magic, putting your hand on a card meant you have to play it now). We should pay more attention, is all.
"strategies I enjoy": I think that's the key to your reasoning re: Wasteland. It would not be a solution, it would be a different, vastly superior problem. As you said it would suppress some decks, and that's never a good thing however you look at it. And the standard Wasteland deck would just be unstoppable. Titan.dek (whatever that is, Kessig? Not exactly a 90% winner. The former Valakut? It mainly existed in the age of Caw-Blade, which WAS a 90% winner; Valakut's semi-undisputed reign lasted about 3 months) would have no way to answer it, and will just be pushed out of existence. That's not a better balance, that's taking one strategy and replace it with another.
See, Wasteland isn't "a little LD". Wasteland is a LD-heavy strategy, and encourages to go down that path more. I was playing when there were Sinkhole/Nether Void decks. Have fun with them. I didn't. People quit Magic in mass because of them. WotC will go out of business before allowing those kinds of decks again.
Easy LD is fine and necessary to get rid of problematic lands. That's Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter for you. They're good designs. Wasteland isn't. It tried to correct Strip Mine, but failed to identify its real problem. And pushing players into playing monocolored with basic lands only? Another good way to make Magic dumber and less appealing. These days, a good chunk of the cards have fun with interactions between different colors of your deck. Take those out, and you'll reduce Magic to Goblin Guides and White Knights.
On the other hand, your analysis of FoW is absolutely on the spot. :)
I have really grown to despise the "battlecruiser magic" of current standard, and I like the fact that cards like Wasteland prevent a format from turning into nothing but people throwing haymakers at each other. A little LD would have helped cure the Titan problem quite admirably this past year. And in the absence of vial, it's not as if goblins and merfolk can really abuse Wasteland and Port like in real legacy, just suppress some of the decks that get too greedy with colors and fill up with 5-6 cmc drops -- and not even all of those decks, since treefolk, which I see everywhere in the JFF room, is 90% basic forests and seemingly has two Bosk Bannerets in every opening hand ever.
Wasteland also incidentally helps strategies I enjoy like threshold and cards like KotR and Terravore. I realize why some are not fans, but legacy "control" decks manage to get to 4 lands fine by playing around it, or using Stifle, and if you really expect more than 4-5 lands in play without trickery or a ramp subtheme, well this is still legacy :-).
Wasteland's relative absence seems more noticeable than FoW. The absence of FoW rears it's head only whenever some crazy combo deck ported from real legacy shows up. But hardly anybody plays Daze either, which would do much the same thing in most games against combo, especially game 1 when they forget to play around it. I think most folks just get complacent and don't expect those combo decks, then they show up and go 4-0, then disappear into the night again. So FoW is good about once every two months, for a single tournament, not enough to warrant inclusion even if everyone owned them, except in a few blue tempo decks where it would be fine just countering a removal spell after tapping out for a threat.
AVR will be standard legal until October 2013.
Will AVR be around longer than the normal third set because of m13? I want to buy some of the good stuff up this week if AVR is going to be the normal third set release. Help me out guys!
nice write up.
Keep up the great hosting and Thank you Heath for the prize support for this event.
- Joe
You left out the lingering souls x4 in your last list.
The effect that is most beneficial to the caster should take effect. Why should a player not use the uncounterable ability if they can.
When I said flashing back Cruel Ultimatum is one of the most powerful things you can do in Standard, what I meant was it's one of the most powerful things you can do in Modern. Proofreading fail.
I got mine (singular, but it's all I need) at 22. :)
I agree more with you than with Rex. There's a reason LD has always been the major source of hate for players.
On the topic of the meta currently, and seemingly, having lost interest in Elves & Goblins, I believe that's just a very momentary thing. The main reason is simple, anyway: we just had a full block with not a single Elf, Goblin, or Merfolk. Therefore, no new toys to play with, and plenty of different toys to play with (I expect soulbond to be the next best thing in tribal very soon). Ravnica will probably fix that, creating a new cycle.
Two major points:
1) I don't think a format that is dominated by one type of deck (you suggested aggro in this case) is desirable. One of the reasons I stopped being devoted to Saturdays 1pm play tribal wars is because of the incredible amount of easy.decs that were being brought. If Wasteland were to help budget aggro (goblins and other similar style decks) win even more that would be a bad thing.
Thankfully the same people throwing together easy.dec typically can't afford Wastelands too. Also thankfully the meta has shifted from easy.dec to more intriguing styles of decks though aggro still has a dominating effect.
I don't think Wastelands is an auto 4x in every tribal wars legacy deck either. I think it really depends on your plan.
2) Wasteland really hoses budget mana sources of multicolor decks. Those are the ones that play Rav bounce lands and lands that come into play tapped, etc. Having a reasonable hand of 3 lands + 4 cards suddenly becomes unreasonable in the face of Wasteland, + Wasteland.
Now the guy running 4x Crucible, 4x Wasteland, 4x Loam needs other decks to slow down so they can get their mana hose lock in. But in general Wasteland hoses the slower players anyway. The fast players don't bother with multi lands for the most part relying instead on consistent fast beats, hoping to win before they get swept. Not sure how Wasteland would help against that.
BTW The cost did drop momentarily last month or so to around $25 per and then boomeranged back up.