• Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Riders of Gavony is on my 'get this and break this' list for the format: Rendering your creatures unblockable and untargettable by your opponent's tribe is very powerful. However, my feeling is it is not unstoppable: One bolt and he's gone, one path and he's gone, Punsishing Grove and 5 mana gets rid, wrath gets rid. If your tribe relies on creature-based removal like assassin, then yeah, might be tricky. On the whole, a good card for the format, a good finisher for aggressive knights or humans, but bolt bait.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    To clarify for Apaulogy about the will of the council remark as I see it: He feels there is a group of players whom he respects/likes and wants to be respected and liked by that disapprove of his deck styles. I disagree but I can see how he might get that impression based on some of the backlash he has received in the past over the way some of his decks play. Imho apaulogy took those remarks far too harshly but being sensitive myself to friends remarks I can see why.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    You know, I have half a mind to make a Cloudpost deck just to show you how broken it can really get. :p

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    whatever man I can see what you wrote and its attitudes like yours that had me stop showing up to tribal, but you know I'm gonna let you have the last word because unlike you when I say I'm done with an argument I'm done.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Yep, but what I'm saying is that it's really, really hard you'll see Eldrazi. :)
    You can look at the Tribe Popularity Survey vantar6697 is maintaining: this year, 16 events, 318 registered decks, 1 Eldrazi.

    It's like not going to the U.S. because you fear to be attacked by bears. :)

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    So play to win. Who's saying you shouldn't? Everybody does. I do. My way, but I do. AJ does. His way, but he does.

    I really don't understand what are you trying to say here. What Modern and Standard do that we're not doing? What anything of this has to do with you saying that didn't like your decks being complained about? Do Modern and Standard prevent complaining? I don't think so, I played Standard 2-man queues and met people who made a fuss because I had rogue cards in the sideboard which allowed me to win, yet they weren't "what my archetype should run". I swear the mentality of competitive Standard players is maddening. Last time I played Modern, a guy complained because my (absolutely subpar) Sarkhan/Doubling Season deck was "cutthroat" and "something that should be in a 2-man queue, not in a PRE". But are we really going to take these complaints seriously? Are you?

    What's the "will of the council"? Seriously, I don't understand. There's only Blippy here, a guy who spends all his weekends to make people play in various PREs. The fact that he listens to me and others, and I ask people for opinions doesn't mean there some kind of oligarchy, or players who get listened to more than others.

    And the only reason you won with those decks is because you played them. It's hard to win with a Pegasus deck if you don't play with it.

  • Midweek Draft time!   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Worst article on here in a while. Agree 100% with some of the other comments.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    That's certainly true, but I don't go by what wins and loses. If I see Eldrazi, I just concede and go on to other things.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    I play to win.

    I don't care about prizes. They are nice motivators, but secondary to me.

    Modern and Standard award preparedness and understanding the way your cards interact with each other, other decks etc... This is how metagames are born.

    Seems this style is not the "will of the council", and I like familiarity.

    The only reason I won with Goblins is because I had essentially a Storm deck in a permission light field. Same with Pegasus, I just shoehorned SFM + Batterskull. Werewolfs had Fire + Grove and Assault Loam Engines.

    Just saying, I was playing things I was familiar with.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    I didn't say that at all.

    this criteria is for myself and why I am not showing up. If anyone wants to follow suit, bully for them.

    Reading is tech.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Ah, yeah, Birchlore Rangers. :)

    Of course, as the creator of the format, you're going to be the Master of Ceremonies in every Double Tribal event (I don't know what that would mean, but it's cool :)

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Thanks for sharing your opinions!

    Yeah, Double Tribal is a bit of an enigma right now, but it seems people are liking the idea. I chatted with Blippy earlier, it's more or less confirmed that we'll try the monthly rotation between Endangered (in some form), Singleton and Double. Next month (May) will still have an Endangered event, though.

    I didn't think about writing down and publish an actual watch list to discourage abuse of your favorite broken cards, but it's a good idea. We can definitely do that.

    I don't know if Riders of Gavony will be that bad. Protection from creatures isn't this big a deal. It just paints a big target on them. I can see them heavily played in both Human and Knight decks, though. We'll see.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    And yet, Eldrazi never won a single event. And never ended 2nd place too. And never ended 3rd place too. :) They just have three 4th place placements by fliebana.
    They have been played 15 times in the last 57 events (and that includes the Drones). It's more likely to meet Zubera than Eldrazi.

    Sure, Nemesis used to have Ulamog as a finisher in Wall-Drazi. But it's not that Bligthsteel Colossus would be too much different in that deck (interactions with Karakas aside).

    This is just to say that sometimes our experiences trick our perception.

  • Midweek Draft time!   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Thank you! I didn't know that. That is very helpful since I've been having to save every list up til now.

    I'll try to make the next midweek draft beefier too.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    In random order:

    - Who gives a shit about whiners? People complains about everything: elves, goblins, oozes, drakes (it happened: "Gilded Drake is sooo broken!"), their jobs, the government, the weather. So what? That's the human nature, it will always be

    - Who gives a shit about people complaining about your decks when you know that you're NOT doing anything wrong (like, never changing your deck a single time because you just want to win)? Which is what you were doing, if you ask me. I consider you a valuable player, even as a Spike, a I will fight to bring you back precisely because your Top 4 placements read like this: Pegasus, Rebel, Goblin, Werewolf. If you let the complainers push you out, you let them win. You let them make you do what they want.

    - So, Elves are the most successful tribe, followed by Goblins, followed by Humans. So what? Big surprise! This is tribal, and these are the strongest tribes due to how they have been supported in the course of the years. What's wrong with that? But trust me, your statistics aren't right: Elves have all those points, sure, and yet the week where there were 5 Elf decks over 20 players, only 1 of them made Top 4. The other four? They didn't even end in the money. This means they weren't beaten only by the strongest players. Everybody was beaten by Elves at least once, everybody beated the Elves at least once. Again, it's not about the power level, it's about the frequency.

    - You're wildly underestimating what people consider a "success". We are (i.e. Blippy is, I'm doing what I can) building this event so that winning might not be the only way to "success". AJ brought Manticores last Saturday. Regular event, with Elves and whatnot. He ended in the money. He got the Endangered Prize. He got the Virgin Prize. Therefore, he made more tix than the undefeated players. Now, tell me, playing Manticores and teaching a lesson to everyone isn't "success"? Because to me, it is. And yet he didn't win all the matches. There are people that play for very different reasons than going undefeated. They can't care less what Elves are doing elsewhere. They just don't want to meet the same deck again and again, because losing to different decks isn't as boring as losing to the same weblisted deck.

    - "There are plenty of other tournament where I can smash and not give a shit about what the other person thinks....I can just shrug into a "Should have brought a better deck": I really don't understand what you can't do it in Tribal Apocalypse. Is rightfully giving a shit in Tribal any different than in Modern or Standard?

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    this is kind of a ridiculous post... while I agree that there is always going to be someone complaining about something you're basically saying that if I don't show up with a shoehorn deck that I shouldn't show up at all... forcing a broken combo into this format isn't fun for everyone and further you argue that anyone who disagrees with you is a whining child...

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    1. I wanted to play against someone in tribal between rounds. I don't have tribal decks, but I thought some of my new friends there would have a momir avatar and want to throw down.

    2. Read comments below. "Gentleman's tournament" is tacitly implied and not pushed by you specifically. Sorry if it seemed like I was talking about you. I actually think you are quite thr pragmatist when it comes to these discussions...

    3."if you are going to continue to play in this you just have to suck it up and either play Elves/Goblins or lose to them with your bad gentleman deck"- apaulogy

    this was a conclusion that I drew based on my own opinion and largely why I won't play any more. You are def. allowed to disagree, but this is my opinion based on statistic. You can use your decks as an example of things that don't lose to Elves/Goblins, but you are a decent player/deckbuilder who actively thinks about how to foil problem decks and you have a collection (that you have earned through blood sweat tears) that supports a good player/deckbuilder too. If you look at the big picture though, you will find the winningest tribes to be Elves then Goblins and then prob Humans. It is due to the fact that they are abundant, they have sweet abilities, and that it doesn't take much thought to pilot them correctly...

    I am choosing to not play any more because of this idea that I am probably going to bring a deck that people hate, one way or another. I want to win, but not at the expense of making grown ass people cry and not have fun. There are plenty of other tournament where I can smash and not give a shit about what the other person thinks....I can just shrug into a "Should have brought a better deck", "Should have played around it", or "Still had all these" depending on how trollish I am feeling....

  • Midweek Draft time!   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Is it just me, or have the publishing standards of this site really dropped lately?

    This shouldnt even be considered an article - it has no more value for a reader than a random entry at RareDraft.com and it probably took the author around 10 minutes to create.

    Let me tell you what I would have done differently: I wouldn't c/p a draft, add 10 lame sentences and shamelessly submit an article to the site that pays people for their contributions.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    Even though I've only played in the tournament twice, I'll throw in my thoughts.

    A) I do like the idea of an alternating theme for the first week of the month. If Endangered has gotten stale, some kind of change might go over well. Having a regular rotation might be the answer. Maybe having Endangered every other month if people really like that theme and rotate what gets played in the months between Endangered tournaments. Right now I would think that keeping just one specialty themed week per month would be the best option.

    B) I like the idea of Tribal Singleton more than Double Tribal, but I'd be willing to give Double Tribal a shot.

    C) I haven't tried Double Tribal yet, but if it turns out to be fun I could definitely see it as an alternative to Endangered or included in some kind of rotation.

    D) I need to spent more time in the environment to really ome up with a good variant sugggestion.

    E) Maybe change the requirements on what is Endangered (switch to a number lower than 50).

    Bannings/watchlist

    I do like the idea of the watch list. There are definitely cards that people know are overpowered. If they aren't being abused on a consistant basis, then they don't need to be banned - a watch list lets people know that every time they abuse one of these cards it gets the card that much closer to being banned.

    I can see Punishing Fire getting banned for all of the obvious reasons, but I haven't seen enough to know whether or not it's really skewing the format. I haven't played against an elf deck yet so I can't really comment on what does or doesn't need to be done there.

    If spell countering isn't a big part of these events, I don't think that Cavern of Souls needs to be banned. Take out the protection from countering and it's just another land that can produce multiple types of mana. There plenty of other less expensive options to play over Cavern that do basically the same thing (if not more). However as someone mentioned on the WotC forum, Riders of Gavony could be an issue and might need watching.

    Riders of Gavony (2WW)
    Human Knight

    Vigilance
    As Riders of Gavony enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
    Human creatures you control have protection from creatures of the chosen type.
    3/3

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    I've played in the Tribal event now and then, and mostly I find something else to do with my Saturdays because I hate seeing Eldrazi. To me, this IS about power level. In Legacy, it's stupidly easy to cast an Eldrazi with the Cloudpost/Vesuva set up and any legendary Eldrazi being legal just makes me not want to play. It's gotten to the point where I will just concede to an Eldrazi on the stack. Does that make me a bad sport? Maybe...but I hate the tribe so much that I refuse to play in an event where I can see them regularly.

    With that being said, there are some "normal" beatdown decks that want to get a lot of creatures out. I don't have a problem with those. But the combo decks seem to beg players to use Force of Will, which really isn't okay by me. I believe bannings should be done by power level and consistency. Charbelcher looks like an amazingly broken card, and I'm rather glad I didn't have to play against that.

    For me, it will always be about fun. Non-interactive combo decks just aren't that fun to play against- at least, I haven't found that they are. I don't know what the solution might be, but for the present, I don't know if I can play at these events because the power level is just too high.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    As soon as Prizes are on the line some people will play to the absolute letter of any rule so you have to be specific and dictatorial with rules. Ambiguity breeds contempt in this case.

    There HAVE been times when the Apocalypse was just a bunch of us having fun with wacky ideas. Unfortunately those times are behind us for the most part. It is just a fact of life that everything changes and not always for the better.

    The thing Kuma is trying to do is at least make the changes interesting.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    A) Ok. I agree, it was just suggested to me by a couple players who really like to play Tribal in non-regular fashion.

    Don't ban both Heritage and Nettle, Nettle alone does nothing. Is either one of them.

    Plague Bounty: I had an idea on those lines earlier: what about punishing the mob/sheep mentality instead? Like this: when there are 4 or more decks with the same tribe (easier than a percentage, since 4 is already 20% most of the times, you'd need 25 players to go up to 5, and that rarely happens and makes no real difference), all the tix won by one of the decks are shared between all the decks. This way a weak player will be tempted to copy the tribe of a strong player next time (or just go with one of the hot tribes): this way, even ending with 0 wins, he will still gain tix. But what's important is that a strong player will be discouraged to play a tribe that might be too popular, because that would mean share his winnings with other people. This will encourage top players to seek different things.
    What do you think?

    I'll write this at the end of every comment now: I DON'T WANT TO BAN ALUREN AND CHARBELCHER! On watch is fine (but I doubt they will ever go out of control, Aluren has been around for a full year and only played 3 times). But I used them to make a point about power level not being the only relevant aspect in banning.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    The tap 2 elves to produce 1 mana of any color guy is NOT heritage druid. I am just forgetting his name at the moment. Stupid elf is stupid. :)

    Double Tribal as I had it originally set a higher bar to match in 25 of each tribe (Because it was a big deck and 33% seemed low) but otherwise its correct.

  • Midweek Draft time!   13 years 10 weeks ago

    I admit that some of the draft picks are pretty obvious in the beginning of the article which cuts down on text but the rest of the article is pretty poor. As the previous poster mentioned, you can usually find your deck list and if not, why not take five mins to manually add your picks and make the deck. There are about three sentences of text about all three rounds. This should not be a published article.

  • Diaries of the Apocalypse: Tribal Weeks 66-67   13 years 10 weeks ago

    I agree about not making a big deal about power cards. It's not the point. Even Charbelcher: before that should be considered a problem, it has to do more than win once or twice, maybe by a single player. Somebody mentioned raf.azevedo's Living End (and my own Living Death, btw, that probably got unnoticed only because I play every single week with a lot of different decks, some of them bad, some of them not). Well, nobody should touch Living End because a player consistently use it (not even winning all the times). It would be a problem if we were seeing 2-3 Living End decks every week. But we're not. So, it's fine. It's like one of raf's favored weapons. I like if players try to find their voices, rather than just copying, say, Dark Confidant/Snapcaster/Meddling Mage/Swords to Plowshares decks.

    I kinda answered about the bannings in the other comment. Heritage and the "tap 2 elves" guy are the same person. :) Maybe you were thinking of Archdruid? And I'm not in favor of banning a card like Cradle, that a lot of different decks and tribes use, just because a strong deck abuse it (while nobody else really does: it's strong, it generates a strong effect, that's not abuse). On the other hand, Punishing is transversal, it doesn't characterize a particular tribe (that's part of the whole point, actually). And the Elf pieces are just a way to push Elves in different directions, and hopefully reduce their overall number a little.

    But no comments about Double Tribal? :) It's going to be a thing, apparently! In my ruling, did I get it like it was envisioned by you?