Falkenrath Aristocrat didn't "sneak up" it was the defining mythic in the block deck that went undefeated. As long as block remains a viable format, it will be a card. Unfortunately it doesn't look poised to overtake constructed, although that's from the basis of what we have seen in AVR, RB could certainly break out after M11/Ravnica.
I'm surprised that budget decks would even be worried about Wasteland, since many budget decks run mostly basics. I think the presence of Wasteland is what keeps decks honest, I know my 4-color advisor list earlier this year would have been wrecked by any hand with a couple Wastelands in it. Apart from punishing greedy splashes, it's also responsible for the notoriously low mana curve in legacy, along with the lack of good fast mana. Again that helps budget aggro. On the whole, I think more Wastelands in the Trib Apoc PRE would probably be good for it, and actually would help budget friendly decks that are already good become even better. Pricier multicolor decks would have to adapt to its presence.
I hadn't realized it was up to 37 tix, which may frustrate some people, but it's a card you will slam 4 of into many many decks you brew and you easily get alot of mileage out of owning a set. Next time there's any TSE drafting, and the price moves down, pick em up and you won't be disappointed. They might also drop if included in FTV Lands this fall, since supply online is basically unlimited and the value of other staples in the set should help push the price down hard.
I too was a big fan of the ninja. I remember when they came out, I wasn't on MTGO just casual paper. I traded to my friends whatever I could to get the cards I needed, came home from work with a six pack and a gram of blow (I was younger and much more stupid than now) and sat at my table smeared my whole collection out and made a four hour production of designing one deck. I like the ninja. I felt my deck a masterpiece and it worked well. I am off paper these days so it sits in a box in a closet next to my other favorite tribal deck; the cephalids. Are they going to bring back cephalids too? That would be so cool! I love tako. The best enabler I found for the ninjas was Willo-wisp. That guy sneaks them in quick, easy, while covering his own back. Rewind is good to for when they try to stop the enablers you will still have the mana to ninja. Do you think in 8 years they will make Werewolves in a planechase deck?
You're also right about Legacy, but I think my and Paul's assessment on its brokenness stemmed more from access consideration first, then the utter chance of having your game last 30 seconds. If you look at what WotC is trying to do with Modern (cultivating a format with a wider pool where both the length of the games and the size of the meta are balanced enough), you can see that the mere existence of cards/combos that allow you that type of lightning-fast endgame isn't a sign of health. Would people play Bridge if it was possible to look at the first hand of cards and just say "I won"? Or Snooker, if there was a cue that made you win at the first shot? Would you play a videogame where you just have to push a button and the game ends, regardless of the fact that you win or lose? To make money, sure. But I think players still like to play this game for fun. And WotC should only be praised when it puts these players first, always.
I think the right word is "degenerate". Legacy was born because Vintage had become a degenerate format. Of course, Vintage's issues are of another kind entirely, since they're due to the fact that Vintage-only cards were designed in a careless, naive time. Looking back from our vantage point, what's the sense of a card that makes you draw 3 cards at instant speed for 1 mana? It doesn't belong to the game we're playing now. Hell, people are happy to play Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions in Modern! So, Vintage is the real definition of "broken": those cards are just designer's mistakes. For complicated, commercial reasons WotC couldn't just say, "Ok, we now see these cards came out wrong, let's just put them out of the game", so they ultimately relegated them to a nostalgia format that has no real meaning for most of the playing community. (The degenerate aspect of Vintage is also that the broken cards are so many and so powerful that you end up having a lot of "locked" slots in any competently built deck, so your remaining deckbuilding space is something like 15 slots).
Legacy started as a fresh take on the "eternal" concept. Over the years, though, it went degenerate as well, if in a still playable/buildable way. I expect Modern to go degenerate at some point, maybe 10 years from now, maybe less. Unless they keep banning more and more cards, which is entirely possible, since with Modern they started with a more manageable meta, with cards from an era (the full MaRo takeover) where power concerns were addressed right from the design step, and the designers had a clearer idea of where the game was going, plus a more efficient system of course corrections in development. They never had the chance to try this "cultivate a healthy garden" approach with Legacy, which started as the lesser evil and felt good as it was compared to the Vintage nightmare of a secondary market where MTG cards had become a serious investment options, which didn't bode well for a kid who would just like to play with dragons and wizards.
We sometimes forget that this is a game, and what that actually means. When two kids play with toy soldiers, one of them always loses the war. Maybe it's the same that lost the previous time. And again and again. But he's still having fun. And I doubt that kid at some point would say, "That's enough! I quit playing with toy soldiers!" Maybe we should learn a little something from those kids.
For some reason I can't always get it to work. I've been messing around with it more and have had better success recently but still have problems. And honestly it was a good excuse for cutting some cards.
Good analysis on FoW and the concept of answers perceived as threats. There's a moment where a player should take a step back and think, "Wow, that was a powerful answer. But if he didn't have it, he would have been just slaughtered by my move". It has to be different than a powerful endgame card.
Also true about new players to the tribal format (which feels exotic to most, it's mostly a MTGO-only fringe format, despite being linked to a very popular concept the WotC builds entire blocks around) not knowing exactly what to play and going with the most famous tribal decks from the outside, the usual suspects Elves, Goblins, Merfolks.
I think FoW bears the weight of its money level and fame on MTGO. I sometimes talk with people who only play paper MTG, and they're always surprised to hear that we worship FoW here, and that FoW is THE dream card, the one that says "I'm a money player/I'm a pro". In the paper world, where all the power cards from the old sets have insane prices, and you have to pay $400 for a white-bordered playset of Savannah ($1400 if you want them black-bordered), FoW is a relatively cheap card (it went up over the years, but it's still half the cost of the online version). It's considered a staple of Legacy counter magic just like Swords to Plowshares is a staple of removals: just something you make room for in your deck in order to be prepared and survive.
Let's be honest: being able to stop a turn-1 power play is absolutely legit. And it's something that never happens in Tribal. And there are times where a FoW player would just have 2 open mana, so FoW in that case is just a very bad version of Counterspell, and/or a Mana Leak in that slot would have sorted the same exact effect on the opponent.
I really loved the card, but figured that Lingering Souls was going to be too big an obstacle to overcome, just goes to show you can't always find the diamonds in the rough.
We discussed both of those decks (Spiders and Warriors) and I am glad to see you brought them. In the spiders deck I was thinking that the Wastelands were actually bad since your deck is so mana hungry. I would have wanted some more fixing or just plain lands there, never mind about slowing down the zoo players and the like.
I think what makes Legacy broken is that the glass cannons can just wreak havoc even if you hate them if the sideboarding isn't perfect. But more than that, accessability. Along with Classic this is what makes Legacy so hard to deal with. Cards like Wasteland and Fow are staples you need before you can even really consider playing competitively.
Kuma has a point there, in a sense that Tribal Wars does not have that problem typically (at least not all the time). The problem with TWL is that horribly broken decks can appear out of nowhere and there will BE no answer for them. Except to get a lucky draw and hope for the best while hoping your opponent gets screwed, which imho is NOT how to play magic for fun or profit.
I also will note that wildly powerful answers can sometimes feel like wildly powerful threats to the uninitiated. I remember my first match against Kara where I brought a relatively weak version of Sphinges with Living Death as my bomb and that wrecked their deck and the reaction was "Wow Living Death is broken!" Well yeah sometimes.
We used to say back in the day if Living Death resolves the game should be over. However there are so many ways to fight back against recursion and sweepers that even the combination of the two resolving does not guarantee wins.
I think Kara probably has a better handle on power levels now but Force of Will is one of those cards that just can be back breaking particularly if you aren't expecting it and then you are and it never shows up or shows up when you've already blown your chance to stop it.
Ran into FOW in the HoW classic tourney and it just stopped me cold turn 1 when if I had resolved Lodestone Golem I had a good chance of flat out winning. That's why Fow is important. It is an overpowering answer that feels like a threat. Unlike Living Death however it does not win the game by itself.
-I really do not find this format cutthroat at all. Sure, there are a few people going for the win, but you see a lot of people going for the virgin prize. You see a lot more people trying to pull of whacky stuff that they would never try in a Daily Event.
-My Spider deck was one of the decks with Wastelands. It also had a lot of duals and fetches. Despite being a fairly expensive deck, I knew going into it, it was one of the worst decks I had ever played in Tribal Apoc. It was a fairly Vorthos deck (for me atleast) and I wanted the flavor of Spiders that keep coming from the graveyard and eating everything up. With all of the on theme stuff I wanted to include in the deck I didn't have any room for sweepers or mana accell that were badly needed. Wasteland was one hope to slow down the aggro decks a little to play my clunky spiders.
-My Warriors deck, despite the much lower cost was far more cutthroat than my Spider deck. I really wish that I had played Spiders for the 12 person tournament last week, and Warriors this week. Despite it being more cutthroat, it is not what I would call a win at any cost deck. My thought process with my Warrior deck was that it could hate out the boogeymen of the format (the fast aggro decks like Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, Slivers, Allies, Etc. Etc.) and then it would fold to something more unusual and allow a more whacky deck to win. Is there a word for decks that intend to do this? I wouldn't think going in with intentional bad matchups would be cutthroat though. (BTW, about Gathan Raiders being surprising, with the hosers a lot of the times you do not need an extra one and it just eats it and is a 5/5 for 3. Nothing tricky about it, just a dumb beater that eats a dead card.)
-As for the Merfolk player w/ the FOW's.....It was the players first Tribal tournament. This is to be expected. People can look through archives of articles and find new players to the format playing powerful things back when Shard hosted the tournament too. They hear about a Tribal tournament, and the decks they already know are the ones they play with. Furthermore, in chat he was talking about how he felt bad about bringing it and that he was jealous of all the fun things that people are playing with. In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of player I like to see in the tournament, and I hope he had fun and has some ideas for another Tribal Apoc.
-Someone can make a budget aggro or combo deck and have a very good chance to win at every single tournament. Most of the decks that have done the best at Tribal Apoc are very cheap, and most of the expensive cards tend to be used in decks where people are trying to make something work that may not so well in this format.
-One more thing that is a little off subject, but I saw it brought up in the conversation. Why is Legacy a broken format? Is it because the power level is to high? Is it because of the price barrier? I think of Legacy as probably the most balanced format in Magic at the moment. Sure, there are decks that can go off turn 1, but the most powerful decks in the format are glass cannons and easily hated out. So easily hated, that very few will attempt to play them unless they are completely forgotten about (and then that reminds people to pack a little hate and they don't show up again for another 6 months.) If you look at Legacy results, you will see far more archetypes showing up and able to compete than any other format. It is the format that people have the best chance of winning with homebrews in, and new tech is constantly being developed. Maybe the power level or price may be above what some like, but I would not call Legacy very balanced and not broken in the least.
Not defensive, just using your post as an occasion to furtherly elaborate. (I said "scared by" because of the ghost metaphor. I "meant being affected by, got your day ruined by". Sure, frustration, anger, that's it.)
The point is: lack of access isn't a tribal issue specifically. It's a MTG issue. And on paper more than online (although the two are pretty similar now, at least for Modern/Standard). We can also have a debate on how playing Magic as a hobby is still cheaper than playing, say, tennis (if worse for your body shape). But that's beside the point. My point is: if anything, Tribal Wars is a format where you can win a tournament (and we have the ONLY tribal tournament in the system here, unfortunately) with a $30 deck. That's utterly impossible in Legacy and Standard, very hard in Modern (in the PRE scene; in the dailies, it's probably nearly impossible). And you have a bigger meta than Pauper.
That's why I don't accept complaining specifically about Tribal. Not because they hurt me personally or something, but because one has the right to complain as much as he wants, for any irrational reason; that, I don't mind, people will always complain when things are bad, it's just human; what I can't accept is complaining AND saying things that aren't true. "I hate Tribal Apocalypse because Kumagoro ia a stupid name". Fine with that. "In Tribal Apocalypse, all the decks cost $1,000". No, sir, they don't. Keep complaining, stop saying things that aren't true. Just that.
"don't worry about what others are playing and play how you want to"
That's absolutely true, and very wise.
But for me, again, it's more: you're free to worry, complain, vent your frustration on what you want, quit, and so on. Just use real data while doing so, because people tend to believe stuff said with a loud voice.
So, now I'll give them the real data, that's the least I can do.
Lady Evangela is a quirky leader. Certainly you could also have run Merieki Ri Berit instead for the same effect but that would make people think you were perhaps running something evil whereas people look at the Lady and go "oh that's a casual commander." Nevermind that people get upset about Maze of Ith. :d
Definitely another fun and cool deck. Vindicate raises an eyebrow because I know people will rage just at the cost of it. However if you gottem might as well playem.
I don't think anyone is scared. I could be wrong, but fear isn't what I've seen posted here. What I've seen is frustration and anger. Perhaps the reasons for the frustration and anger are invalid but that's not for me to say.
My response while underneath yours was largely directed at those feelings not you so no need to be so defensive. (I think I was agreeing with you.)
I agree that many tribal decks start at a budget but often the staples are the cards that break their banks. Taiga for example at $14-15 is beyond many tribal players. That isn't to say people shouldn't play them if they got them but being sensitive to someone who is card poor doesn't hurt either. (That means not saying stuff like "too bad! deal with it!" Not that anyone has, just sayin'.)
And really how you (or I as my collection doesn't stink either, and I also haven't spent a dime on the game) acquired our cards is irrelevant.
The frustration stems from lack of access. Not that we are wealthy. (I am certainly not and I assume you aren't either.) I think seeing FOW (Ive seen it more often than most I think) triggers that response of, "no way I can compete with that" despite the fact that FOW requires both a good player and a well tuned deck to be good in the format. (No vial certainly makes it worse.)
I think posting costs, averages and ranges (low to high) would be helpful in a general sense but doesn't answer this particular complaint. What I said does. IE: don't worry about what others are playing and play how you want to.
Sorry, this is the kind of rant that makes me angry. Because it's the generalization of a subjective perception not based on reality. I spend a lot of time publishing decks, vantar6697 spends a lot of time compiling lists of the played cards and tribes, and still people can't help but complain the first time things didn't go well for them. I really wish sometimes a player will say, "Hey, I ran a $10 deck and yet I beated a $400 deck. That's not fair, it shouldn't be like that". Guess what? Nobody ever complains when things went well for them.
And the truth is: this tournament has probably the OPPOSITE problem. Elves won 9 times. Goblins won 6 times. Both went Top 4 a HUGE number of times. And they are budget decks. Seriously, they are super-cheap to build (that's also the reason they are played so much: cheap, strong and reliable, what's not to love for a Spike?)
But let's examine, for instance, the Top 4 decks featured in this article. I'll let out the manabase (except for special lands if present, i.e. lands not being there just to produce mana), because of course that's the real cost of a Legacy format, since Taiga works better than Rootbound Crag or Karplusan Forest. We saw cheap manabases work just fine, though. Like yours!
So, for Event 71, we had:
- misterpid's Wall deck: $59.48
- DirtyDuck's Kor deck: $47.69 (and without the singletons Batterskull and SoFI, which are a plan B he rarely had to use: 27.16)
- Nagarjuna's Spirit deck: $83.15 (and without the singleton JtMS, which I doubt was the key card that won him all the games: $43.88, half of which are for the singleton Geist of Saint Traft)
- KaraZorEl's Sliver deck: $8.59 (I already gave you my kudos for your great result on such a small budget)
Event 72:
- romellos's Ally deck: $38.66 (including Grove of the Burnwillows and the other special lands)
- SBena's Knight deck: $171.42 (without the 2 Wastelands, which went from 22 to 37 over the past 2 months or so anyway: $96.86)
- _Kumagoro_'s Spirit deck: $241.25 (without the Wasteland, $203.97)
- grapplingfarang's Warrior deck: $53.42
Look at me, Scrooge McDuck! (And yet I didn't spend a single real life dollar in this game since 2 years, all the cards I bought since then were entirely earned in-game, through work, trade and tournament prizes). If only my $80-worth Pernicious Deeds actually showed up just once.
Anyway, winning a nontribal Legacy tournament on a $50 nonland budget? Good luck with that.
Also good luck with using such a broken strategy as ramp into Tooth and Nail within a serious Legacy environment. They would gently laugh at you and pat on your head, then give you a lollipop.
"it's become so cut-throat that I don't even recognize it anymore"
Oh yeah, Allies winning a tribal tournament? Preposterous! Knight decks? Unheard-of! And those Warriors? What grappling was thinking when he ran Gathan Raiders? So broken.
I challenge you to extend the sample as much as you want. I know what I'm saying for the simple reason I've done tons of these chronicles now. I usually get how much the decklists cost while I reorder them. Just look at my other post below for some other examples. Our tribal decks are ridiculously overcosted compared to Legacy decks (of course they are, most tribal bases cost 0.05 apiece). It's not even the same sport.
Vintage is broken. Legacy is a slightly less broken. Legacy Tribal Wars is considerably less broken than Legacy. Then personal perceptions kicks in. For the money involved, too. To me, Standard costs a ton of money to play competitively. I'll play with Huntmaster of the Fells when it will be out of Standard. Wanna bet I will not have to pay $100 for the playset?
And Force of Will can't ruin your day to the point you want to answer to it in deckbuilding, because Force of Will is just NOT THERE (and now with Cavern of the Souls will NEVER be there). Kara has been one of the half a dozen players to see FoW in action in the last 2 years of Tribal Apocalypse. (And yes, you and me are among those too).
And FoW is a big barrier we don't have to worry, actually: Legacy is hardly playable in a competitive way without a FoW playset in your collection. Tribal Wars couldn't care less. That's a $410 difference.
Everybody has all the rights to whine, and Gods know if Magic players don't always find ways to whine about pretty much everything. But at least we should stop to be scared by/chase ghosts. I can stand whining, but I can't stand distorted facts.
I'll start to put the cost of any deck in these articles, so maybe people will realize that this is pretty much budget heaven. (Not to mention the simple fact that running Ox and ending with 0 games won still earns you 1 tix, which is exactly what I won with my expensive 3rd place deck below. But most people play to win, not for the prizes, I get it. Yet not all our players, apparently).
This is too small a test sample to come to certain conclusions about the meta based on deck costs. That is to say 2-4 matches won't tell us much. A player can be superior and lose to luck, or a broken draw. A player can be worse and win vs a bad draw or unfortunate timing. (Just happening to have the correct answers at the correct time.) Hey I top 8ed the Ham on Wry with a deck that was cold to me but since it was so good it was easy enough to pilot/sideboard and when I ran into equally strong decks and better players I had problems. (Just pointing out that there are many factors involved.)
Wasteland is way too expensive for some levels of players and while in reach of others is not the kind of card a lot of people want to focus on. (Same with FOW: Buy 1 fow or 1353166 other cards? hmmm...)
Also remember pauper when you say that about the game. Plenty of pauper decks cost less than $60 (1 tix per card on average) and still win.
Force of will is certainly highly playable in Tribal Wars Legacy and is quite strong but requires a certain level of skill to be that good. Not to mention a mindset that not only allows for counter wars but comes prepared to win them. I suspect the fish player wasn't really prepared to win despite his $ cards.
I think the real response to Kara's complaint/remark here is: Legacy is broken. Trying to fix it is Quixotic and futile and we have better things to do with our time. Tribal as a subset of Legacy (for now) is also broken and is unremediable with sideboarding so we further waste our time discussing bans when they are really just absurd.
The best you can do is tune your decks to the best of your ability and play and dont worry about how expensive the decks are that your opponents bring. There will always people who will go the extra mile financially or otherwise to win.
Dual Lands and Wasteland getting your goat? Play Blood Moon (Subtle reference to AJ here. :p) Force of Will ruins your day? Play Vexing Husher. And so on.
Do you realize that a playset of Wasteland back at the time used to cost less that your own Sliver Queen, right? What if someone had them because they just were playing back then? They should restrain from playing them because now they are pricey?
Daze is a 7-tix card. I suppose "money card" is a subjective concept, but if everything over 5 tix is "money", then this discussion is moot: this game just can't be played competitively for free.
And that was probably like the third time we saw FoW in Tribal Apocalypse in 73 events. The reason is: because it's kinda bad in tribal, too many threats, no 1st turn plays to stop. In fact, that Merfolk deck didn't make into Top 4. And the Knight deck with Wasteland performed exactly like your budget deck.
So when in a tournament a (currently priced) $300 deck ultimately does just the same as a $10 deck, what does this say about the meta of that tournament?
I'll leave the answer to you.
Yeah, I'm rethinking the whole thing. Like, what if Demons had to face Baneslayer? They can't block it, but it's not that hey can't deal with it (just doomblade it or dismember it!) Sigarda would be worse, then. And Halo Hunter is really unwarranted, since it's a one-time effect, it's like banning Nekrataal in a generic week.
All in all, it was mostly to avoid having 4x Baneslayer (now that it doesn't cost much) and 4x Halo Hunter (which is bulk) in every deck.
Then again, if this has to be a flavorful battle, why the Angels shouldn't bring the one angel who fights demon better, and vice versa?
With AVR release events people aren't drafting much ISD/DKA. Plus it is very good with Blood Artist.
What is being referred is its sudden jump in price. which typically happens on the back of news of a new deck or the like.
Falkenrath Aristocrat didn't "sneak up" it was the defining mythic in the block deck that went undefeated. As long as block remains a viable format, it will be a card. Unfortunately it doesn't look poised to overtake constructed, although that's from the basis of what we have seen in AVR, RB could certainly break out after M11/Ravnica.
I'm surprised that budget decks would even be worried about Wasteland, since many budget decks run mostly basics. I think the presence of Wasteland is what keeps decks honest, I know my 4-color advisor list earlier this year would have been wrecked by any hand with a couple Wastelands in it. Apart from punishing greedy splashes, it's also responsible for the notoriously low mana curve in legacy, along with the lack of good fast mana. Again that helps budget aggro. On the whole, I think more Wastelands in the Trib Apoc PRE would probably be good for it, and actually would help budget friendly decks that are already good become even better. Pricier multicolor decks would have to adapt to its presence.
I hadn't realized it was up to 37 tix, which may frustrate some people, but it's a card you will slam 4 of into many many decks you brew and you easily get alot of mileage out of owning a set. Next time there's any TSE drafting, and the price moves down, pick em up and you won't be disappointed. They might also drop if included in FTV Lands this fall, since supply online is basically unlimited and the value of other staples in the set should help push the price down hard.
I too was a big fan of the ninja. I remember when they came out, I wasn't on MTGO just casual paper. I traded to my friends whatever I could to get the cards I needed, came home from work with a six pack and a gram of blow (I was younger and much more stupid than now) and sat at my table smeared my whole collection out and made a four hour production of designing one deck. I like the ninja. I felt my deck a masterpiece and it worked well. I am off paper these days so it sits in a box in a closet next to my other favorite tribal deck; the cephalids. Are they going to bring back cephalids too? That would be so cool! I love tako. The best enabler I found for the ninjas was Willo-wisp. That guy sneaks them in quick, easy, while covering his own back. Rewind is good to for when they try to stop the enablers you will still have the mana to ninja. Do you think in 8 years they will make Werewolves in a planechase deck?
I hereby declare you the Voice of Truth. :)
You're also right about Legacy, but I think my and Paul's assessment on its brokenness stemmed more from access consideration first, then the utter chance of having your game last 30 seconds. If you look at what WotC is trying to do with Modern (cultivating a format with a wider pool where both the length of the games and the size of the meta are balanced enough), you can see that the mere existence of cards/combos that allow you that type of lightning-fast endgame isn't a sign of health. Would people play Bridge if it was possible to look at the first hand of cards and just say "I won"? Or Snooker, if there was a cue that made you win at the first shot? Would you play a videogame where you just have to push a button and the game ends, regardless of the fact that you win or lose? To make money, sure. But I think players still like to play this game for fun. And WotC should only be praised when it puts these players first, always.
I think the right word is "degenerate". Legacy was born because Vintage had become a degenerate format. Of course, Vintage's issues are of another kind entirely, since they're due to the fact that Vintage-only cards were designed in a careless, naive time. Looking back from our vantage point, what's the sense of a card that makes you draw 3 cards at instant speed for 1 mana? It doesn't belong to the game we're playing now. Hell, people are happy to play Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions in Modern! So, Vintage is the real definition of "broken": those cards are just designer's mistakes. For complicated, commercial reasons WotC couldn't just say, "Ok, we now see these cards came out wrong, let's just put them out of the game", so they ultimately relegated them to a nostalgia format that has no real meaning for most of the playing community. (The degenerate aspect of Vintage is also that the broken cards are so many and so powerful that you end up having a lot of "locked" slots in any competently built deck, so your remaining deckbuilding space is something like 15 slots).
Legacy started as a fresh take on the "eternal" concept. Over the years, though, it went degenerate as well, if in a still playable/buildable way. I expect Modern to go degenerate at some point, maybe 10 years from now, maybe less. Unless they keep banning more and more cards, which is entirely possible, since with Modern they started with a more manageable meta, with cards from an era (the full MaRo takeover) where power concerns were addressed right from the design step, and the designers had a clearer idea of where the game was going, plus a more efficient system of course corrections in development. They never had the chance to try this "cultivate a healthy garden" approach with Legacy, which started as the lesser evil and felt good as it was compared to the Vintage nightmare of a secondary market where MTG cards had become a serious investment options, which didn't bode well for a kid who would just like to play with dragons and wizards.
We sometimes forget that this is a game, and what that actually means. When two kids play with toy soldiers, one of them always loses the war. Maybe it's the same that lost the previous time. And again and again. But he's still having fun. And I doubt that kid at some point would say, "That's enough! I quit playing with toy soldiers!" Maybe we should learn a little something from those kids.
For some reason I can't always get it to work. I've been messing around with it more and have had better success recently but still have problems. And honestly it was a good excuse for cutting some cards.
I did. But then again I thought it was Mr Obvious. You sure no one saw it?
Good analysis on FoW and the concept of answers perceived as threats. There's a moment where a player should take a step back and think, "Wow, that was a powerful answer. But if he didn't have it, he would have been just slaughtered by my move". It has to be different than a powerful endgame card.
Also true about new players to the tribal format (which feels exotic to most, it's mostly a MTGO-only fringe format, despite being linked to a very popular concept the WotC builds entire blocks around) not knowing exactly what to play and going with the most famous tribal decks from the outside, the usual suspects Elves, Goblins, Merfolks.
I think FoW bears the weight of its money level and fame on MTGO. I sometimes talk with people who only play paper MTG, and they're always surprised to hear that we worship FoW here, and that FoW is THE dream card, the one that says "I'm a money player/I'm a pro". In the paper world, where all the power cards from the old sets have insane prices, and you have to pay $400 for a white-bordered playset of Savannah ($1400 if you want them black-bordered), FoW is a relatively cheap card (it went up over the years, but it's still half the cost of the online version). It's considered a staple of Legacy counter magic just like Swords to Plowshares is a staple of removals: just something you make room for in your deck in order to be prepared and survive.
Let's be honest: being able to stop a turn-1 power play is absolutely legit. And it's something that never happens in Tribal. And there are times where a FoW player would just have 2 open mana, so FoW in that case is just a very bad version of Counterspell, and/or a Mana Leak in that slot would have sorted the same exact effect on the opponent.
Navigator is a potential enabler for sure; it's just that it kind of lacks power, but it does help recycle our 187 effects!
Justin, I agree that Ninja's were under-supported last time. I'm happy to see them back!
I always felt ninjas were a mechanic that held so much potential, but the cards were so mediocre/bad.. I just always wanted so much more out of them
What about Deadeye Navigator in the Vela / Ninja deck....Nothing like bouncing Silent-Blade Oni a few times....
I really loved the card, but figured that Lingering Souls was going to be too big an obstacle to overcome, just goes to show you can't always find the diamonds in the rough.
All the talk and prediction of the prices of cards and noone saw the falenrath aristocrat sneek up.
"I also purposely avoided Soul's Attendant specifically because of the "may" clause which would cause me to have to click through every trigger"
Is there something I'm missing?...always yes + autoyield?
We discussed both of those decks (Spiders and Warriors) and I am glad to see you brought them. In the spiders deck I was thinking that the Wastelands were actually bad since your deck is so mana hungry. I would have wanted some more fixing or just plain lands there, never mind about slowing down the zoo players and the like.
I think what makes Legacy broken is that the glass cannons can just wreak havoc even if you hate them if the sideboarding isn't perfect. But more than that, accessability. Along with Classic this is what makes Legacy so hard to deal with. Cards like Wasteland and Fow are staples you need before you can even really consider playing competitively.
Kuma has a point there, in a sense that Tribal Wars does not have that problem typically (at least not all the time). The problem with TWL is that horribly broken decks can appear out of nowhere and there will BE no answer for them. Except to get a lucky draw and hope for the best while hoping your opponent gets screwed, which imho is NOT how to play magic for fun or profit.
I also will note that wildly powerful answers can sometimes feel like wildly powerful threats to the uninitiated. I remember my first match against Kara where I brought a relatively weak version of Sphinges with Living Death as my bomb and that wrecked their deck and the reaction was "Wow Living Death is broken!" Well yeah sometimes.
We used to say back in the day if Living Death resolves the game should be over. However there are so many ways to fight back against recursion and sweepers that even the combination of the two resolving does not guarantee wins.
I think Kara probably has a better handle on power levels now but Force of Will is one of those cards that just can be back breaking particularly if you aren't expecting it and then you are and it never shows up or shows up when you've already blown your chance to stop it.
Ran into FOW in the HoW classic tourney and it just stopped me cold turn 1 when if I had resolved Lodestone Golem I had a good chance of flat out winning. That's why Fow is important. It is an overpowering answer that feels like a threat. Unlike Living Death however it does not win the game by itself.
A lot of points from these arguments..
-I really do not find this format cutthroat at all. Sure, there are a few people going for the win, but you see a lot of people going for the virgin prize. You see a lot more people trying to pull of whacky stuff that they would never try in a Daily Event.
-My Spider deck was one of the decks with Wastelands. It also had a lot of duals and fetches. Despite being a fairly expensive deck, I knew going into it, it was one of the worst decks I had ever played in Tribal Apoc. It was a fairly Vorthos deck (for me atleast) and I wanted the flavor of Spiders that keep coming from the graveyard and eating everything up. With all of the on theme stuff I wanted to include in the deck I didn't have any room for sweepers or mana accell that were badly needed. Wasteland was one hope to slow down the aggro decks a little to play my clunky spiders.
-My Warriors deck, despite the much lower cost was far more cutthroat than my Spider deck. I really wish that I had played Spiders for the 12 person tournament last week, and Warriors this week. Despite it being more cutthroat, it is not what I would call a win at any cost deck. My thought process with my Warrior deck was that it could hate out the boogeymen of the format (the fast aggro decks like Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, Slivers, Allies, Etc. Etc.) and then it would fold to something more unusual and allow a more whacky deck to win. Is there a word for decks that intend to do this? I wouldn't think going in with intentional bad matchups would be cutthroat though. (BTW, about Gathan Raiders being surprising, with the hosers a lot of the times you do not need an extra one and it just eats it and is a 5/5 for 3. Nothing tricky about it, just a dumb beater that eats a dead card.)
-As for the Merfolk player w/ the FOW's.....It was the players first Tribal tournament. This is to be expected. People can look through archives of articles and find new players to the format playing powerful things back when Shard hosted the tournament too. They hear about a Tribal tournament, and the decks they already know are the ones they play with. Furthermore, in chat he was talking about how he felt bad about bringing it and that he was jealous of all the fun things that people are playing with. In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of player I like to see in the tournament, and I hope he had fun and has some ideas for another Tribal Apoc.
-Someone can make a budget aggro or combo deck and have a very good chance to win at every single tournament. Most of the decks that have done the best at Tribal Apoc are very cheap, and most of the expensive cards tend to be used in decks where people are trying to make something work that may not so well in this format.
-One more thing that is a little off subject, but I saw it brought up in the conversation. Why is Legacy a broken format? Is it because the power level is to high? Is it because of the price barrier? I think of Legacy as probably the most balanced format in Magic at the moment. Sure, there are decks that can go off turn 1, but the most powerful decks in the format are glass cannons and easily hated out. So easily hated, that very few will attempt to play them unless they are completely forgotten about (and then that reminds people to pack a little hate and they don't show up again for another 6 months.) If you look at Legacy results, you will see far more archetypes showing up and able to compete than any other format. It is the format that people have the best chance of winning with homebrews in, and new tech is constantly being developed. Maybe the power level or price may be above what some like, but I would not call Legacy very balanced and not broken in the least.
Not defensive, just using your post as an occasion to furtherly elaborate. (I said "scared by" because of the ghost metaphor. I "meant being affected by, got your day ruined by". Sure, frustration, anger, that's it.)
The point is: lack of access isn't a tribal issue specifically. It's a MTG issue. And on paper more than online (although the two are pretty similar now, at least for Modern/Standard). We can also have a debate on how playing Magic as a hobby is still cheaper than playing, say, tennis (if worse for your body shape). But that's beside the point. My point is: if anything, Tribal Wars is a format where you can win a tournament (and we have the ONLY tribal tournament in the system here, unfortunately) with a $30 deck. That's utterly impossible in Legacy and Standard, very hard in Modern (in the PRE scene; in the dailies, it's probably nearly impossible). And you have a bigger meta than Pauper.
That's why I don't accept complaining specifically about Tribal. Not because they hurt me personally or something, but because one has the right to complain as much as he wants, for any irrational reason; that, I don't mind, people will always complain when things are bad, it's just human; what I can't accept is complaining AND saying things that aren't true. "I hate Tribal Apocalypse because Kumagoro ia a stupid name". Fine with that. "In Tribal Apocalypse, all the decks cost $1,000". No, sir, they don't. Keep complaining, stop saying things that aren't true. Just that.
"don't worry about what others are playing and play how you want to"
That's absolutely true, and very wise.
But for me, again, it's more: you're free to worry, complain, vent your frustration on what you want, quit, and so on. Just use real data while doing so, because people tend to believe stuff said with a loud voice.
So, now I'll give them the real data, that's the least I can do.
Lady Evangela is a quirky leader. Certainly you could also have run Merieki Ri Berit instead for the same effect but that would make people think you were perhaps running something evil whereas people look at the Lady and go "oh that's a casual commander." Nevermind that people get upset about Maze of Ith. :d
Definitely another fun and cool deck. Vindicate raises an eyebrow because I know people will rage just at the cost of it. However if you gottem might as well playem.
I don't think anyone is scared. I could be wrong, but fear isn't what I've seen posted here. What I've seen is frustration and anger. Perhaps the reasons for the frustration and anger are invalid but that's not for me to say.
My response while underneath yours was largely directed at those feelings not you so no need to be so defensive. (I think I was agreeing with you.)
I agree that many tribal decks start at a budget but often the staples are the cards that break their banks. Taiga for example at $14-15 is beyond many tribal players. That isn't to say people shouldn't play them if they got them but being sensitive to someone who is card poor doesn't hurt either. (That means not saying stuff like "too bad! deal with it!" Not that anyone has, just sayin'.)
And really how you (or I as my collection doesn't stink either, and I also haven't spent a dime on the game) acquired our cards is irrelevant.
The frustration stems from lack of access. Not that we are wealthy. (I am certainly not and I assume you aren't either.) I think seeing FOW (Ive seen it more often than most I think) triggers that response of, "no way I can compete with that" despite the fact that FOW requires both a good player and a well tuned deck to be good in the format. (No vial certainly makes it worse.)
I think posting costs, averages and ranges (low to high) would be helpful in a general sense but doesn't answer this particular complaint. What I said does. IE: don't worry about what others are playing and play how you want to.
Sorry, this is the kind of rant that makes me angry. Because it's the generalization of a subjective perception not based on reality. I spend a lot of time publishing decks, vantar6697 spends a lot of time compiling lists of the played cards and tribes, and still people can't help but complain the first time things didn't go well for them. I really wish sometimes a player will say, "Hey, I ran a $10 deck and yet I beated a $400 deck. That's not fair, it shouldn't be like that". Guess what? Nobody ever complains when things went well for them.
And the truth is: this tournament has probably the OPPOSITE problem. Elves won 9 times. Goblins won 6 times. Both went Top 4 a HUGE number of times. And they are budget decks. Seriously, they are super-cheap to build (that's also the reason they are played so much: cheap, strong and reliable, what's not to love for a Spike?)
But let's examine, for instance, the Top 4 decks featured in this article. I'll let out the manabase (except for special lands if present, i.e. lands not being there just to produce mana), because of course that's the real cost of a Legacy format, since Taiga works better than Rootbound Crag or Karplusan Forest. We saw cheap manabases work just fine, though. Like yours!
So, for Event 71, we had:
- misterpid's Wall deck: $59.48
- DirtyDuck's Kor deck: $47.69 (and without the singletons Batterskull and SoFI, which are a plan B he rarely had to use: 27.16)
- Nagarjuna's Spirit deck: $83.15 (and without the singleton JtMS, which I doubt was the key card that won him all the games: $43.88, half of which are for the singleton Geist of Saint Traft)
- KaraZorEl's Sliver deck: $8.59 (I already gave you my kudos for your great result on such a small budget)
Event 72:
- romellos's Ally deck: $38.66 (including Grove of the Burnwillows and the other special lands)
- SBena's Knight deck: $171.42 (without the 2 Wastelands, which went from 22 to 37 over the past 2 months or so anyway: $96.86)
- _Kumagoro_'s Spirit deck: $241.25 (without the Wasteland, $203.97)
- grapplingfarang's Warrior deck: $53.42
Look at me, Scrooge McDuck! (And yet I didn't spend a single real life dollar in this game since 2 years, all the cards I bought since then were entirely earned in-game, through work, trade and tournament prizes). If only my $80-worth Pernicious Deeds actually showed up just once.
Anyway, winning a nontribal Legacy tournament on a $50 nonland budget? Good luck with that.
Also good luck with using such a broken strategy as ramp into Tooth and Nail within a serious Legacy environment. They would gently laugh at you and pat on your head, then give you a lollipop.
"it's become so cut-throat that I don't even recognize it anymore"
Oh yeah, Allies winning a tribal tournament? Preposterous! Knight decks? Unheard-of! And those Warriors? What grappling was thinking when he ran Gathan Raiders? So broken.
Give me a break, would you? :)
I challenge you to extend the sample as much as you want. I know what I'm saying for the simple reason I've done tons of these chronicles now. I usually get how much the decklists cost while I reorder them. Just look at my other post below for some other examples. Our tribal decks are ridiculously overcosted compared to Legacy decks (of course they are, most tribal bases cost 0.05 apiece). It's not even the same sport.
Vintage is broken. Legacy is a slightly less broken. Legacy Tribal Wars is considerably less broken than Legacy. Then personal perceptions kicks in. For the money involved, too. To me, Standard costs a ton of money to play competitively. I'll play with Huntmaster of the Fells when it will be out of Standard. Wanna bet I will not have to pay $100 for the playset?
And Force of Will can't ruin your day to the point you want to answer to it in deckbuilding, because Force of Will is just NOT THERE (and now with Cavern of the Souls will NEVER be there). Kara has been one of the half a dozen players to see FoW in action in the last 2 years of Tribal Apocalypse. (And yes, you and me are among those too).
And FoW is a big barrier we don't have to worry, actually: Legacy is hardly playable in a competitive way without a FoW playset in your collection. Tribal Wars couldn't care less. That's a $410 difference.
Everybody has all the rights to whine, and Gods know if Magic players don't always find ways to whine about pretty much everything. But at least we should stop to be scared by/chase ghosts. I can stand whining, but I can't stand distorted facts.
I'll start to put the cost of any deck in these articles, so maybe people will realize that this is pretty much budget heaven. (Not to mention the simple fact that running Ox and ending with 0 games won still earns you 1 tix, which is exactly what I won with my expensive 3rd place deck below. But most people play to win, not for the prizes, I get it. Yet not all our players, apparently).
This is too small a test sample to come to certain conclusions about the meta based on deck costs. That is to say 2-4 matches won't tell us much. A player can be superior and lose to luck, or a broken draw. A player can be worse and win vs a bad draw or unfortunate timing. (Just happening to have the correct answers at the correct time.) Hey I top 8ed the Ham on Wry with a deck that was cold to me but since it was so good it was easy enough to pilot/sideboard and when I ran into equally strong decks and better players I had problems. (Just pointing out that there are many factors involved.)
Wasteland is way too expensive for some levels of players and while in reach of others is not the kind of card a lot of people want to focus on. (Same with FOW: Buy 1 fow or 1353166 other cards? hmmm...)
Also remember pauper when you say that about the game. Plenty of pauper decks cost less than $60 (1 tix per card on average) and still win.
Force of will is certainly highly playable in Tribal Wars Legacy and is quite strong but requires a certain level of skill to be that good. Not to mention a mindset that not only allows for counter wars but comes prepared to win them. I suspect the fish player wasn't really prepared to win despite his $ cards.
I think the real response to Kara's complaint/remark here is: Legacy is broken. Trying to fix it is Quixotic and futile and we have better things to do with our time. Tribal as a subset of Legacy (for now) is also broken and is unremediable with sideboarding so we further waste our time discussing bans when they are really just absurd.
The best you can do is tune your decks to the best of your ability and play and dont worry about how expensive the decks are that your opponents bring. There will always people who will go the extra mile financially or otherwise to win.
Dual Lands and Wasteland getting your goat? Play Blood Moon (Subtle reference to AJ here. :p) Force of Will ruins your day? Play Vexing Husher. And so on.
Do you realize that a playset of Wasteland back at the time used to cost less that your own Sliver Queen, right? What if someone had them because they just were playing back then? They should restrain from playing them because now they are pricey?
Daze is a 7-tix card. I suppose "money card" is a subjective concept, but if everything over 5 tix is "money", then this discussion is moot: this game just can't be played competitively for free.
And that was probably like the third time we saw FoW in Tribal Apocalypse in 73 events. The reason is: because it's kinda bad in tribal, too many threats, no 1st turn plays to stop. In fact, that Merfolk deck didn't make into Top 4. And the Knight deck with Wasteland performed exactly like your budget deck.
So when in a tournament a (currently priced) $300 deck ultimately does just the same as a $10 deck, what does this say about the meta of that tournament?
I'll leave the answer to you.
Yeah, I'm rethinking the whole thing. Like, what if Demons had to face Baneslayer? They can't block it, but it's not that hey can't deal with it (just doomblade it or dismember it!) Sigarda would be worse, then. And Halo Hunter is really unwarranted, since it's a one-time effect, it's like banning Nekrataal in a generic week.
All in all, it was mostly to avoid having 4x Baneslayer (now that it doesn't cost much) and 4x Halo Hunter (which is bulk) in every deck.
Then again, if this has to be a flavorful battle, why the Angels shouldn't bring the one angel who fights demon better, and vice versa?
One week to think about it.