A new edition of Kings & Things was put out just a couple years ago, look for it!
I have a lot of fond memories of that game, as I play tested an early version at a Tom Wham event at Gencon, and when it was finally published a couples friends of mine did some of the art for it. I got the new edition for my birthday, insisted on it!
Well I'm in the same boat as you are with building something and then getting wrecked by 12 post. Hopefully after PT:Philly we'll know more about the format.... but i think all signs point to 12 post and zoo. :(
As for sphinx comment he is WAY to slow for the format as you can see from the games 12 post doesn't care and all it needs to do is drop Emakural and its over and zoo is too fast.
One comment/idea on the RAV duals being reprinted that you brought up (well, actually two things that kind of go together):
I'm not positive WOTC wanted to initiate modern when it did. It seems like a somewhat rushed thing since "Extended" was a pretty bad and boring format that no one really wanted to play. So, they may have wanted to reprint the RAV duals before they started modern, but were forced to start modern before they had planned.
The second thing on RAV duals is that I don't think there was ever any chance they would allow the RAV duals and the Zendikar fetches to be in the same standard format. The mana fixing would be ridiculous, and decks would just jam as much broken stuff together as they could find (or all the other cards would have to be much worse, or much more color intensive). So, I'm not surprised they have not been printed in a core set yet, but I don't think that means they never will. There's also a decent to good chance they will revisit Ravnica in the next few years, so maybe we will see them back there (although that seems too predictable even for them).
I agree with apaulogy that you should have thought this through a little more. The baseline idea isn't actually that bad, it's sort of like a no-rares cube draft, which could include multiples of different cards. The color balancing isn't the only problem. You say 5 of each, but I could bring 5 doom blades or 5 disentombs, huge power level difference. I could nerf all but one color with the cards I bring. Anyway, I don't want to discourage you from thinking outside of the box, but please do try to think of the consequences of your ideas
On that note - about ante: WOTC had to eliminate ante from the game because it essentially made playing gambling, which is illegal in many places in the world. You probably have missed this over the last couple years, but they even had to give out prizes of TVs and video game systems instead of money at German GP's because of gambling issues. Bringing back ante (even to online), is just not feasible from a legal standpoint for WOTC.
"Now feel free to flame me, I'm sure you will. It's not the best idea, but I think it would be a cool and cheap way to see who is the best player, and not the luckiest, since chances are the cards you are drafting are mostly garbage. I mean nobody is going to put in a playset of Dismember's.
(Not editing this) Guy below me, and the guy below him are calling me an idiot right now. Maybe the third guy finds it interesting, and the 4th guy says I'm an idiot"
This is just unnecessary.
I don't think you have vetted any of these ideas either. Do you understand the administrative nightmares you have just concocted? I realize that you are trying to come up with solutions, but I think that one thing you should ask yourself before posting these ideas is "How difficult would this be to administer?"
This is not a flame or anything like that. It is an appeal for logic.
"I gotta go my friends are here, and I have no idea which seat I should take."
Well, if they weren't kickin' in the front seat while simultaneously kickin' in the back seat, this would be a nonchoice. LOL.
RE: Peter Szigeti- this is sad. I always enjoyed hearing about the ridiculous things that would come from this guy. I especially loved the Searing Flesh incident. Sorry. If that happened to me, I would have rofl't. Truly sad.
RE: "Finkelgate"- Lame. I wish this wouldn't have happened because it demonstrates that even intelligent people (gamers in this context) can be dupes to media smokescreens. Obvious troll blog was obvious. Hurtin' for web traffic Gizmodo? U mad, bro? Kudos to Jon for starting a nonprofit. I wonder if they are hiring...
RE: Having your child for three weeks- I have been keeping a journal of the classic stuff my daughter says. I recommend this because it will be a device for embarrassment in their teenage years. Plus, you will have the precociousness documented. Who doesn't love precociousness?
Best one yet. Sad about <ptr> spiritual grandfather to most internet mtg trolls as he was. (There were others doing it, back when he was honing this odd skill but he did it better than most and got a lot of negative attention heaped on him for it. He took being a jerk to all new levels on irc.)
Kudos to Jon for his charity. Can I still qualify? :p
Kudos also to Pikula for being his usual self.
Finkeldate was a long bad joke and though it is funny because of its absurdity I look forward to not hearing about it anymore. I hope that "writer" goes back to obscurity with head bowed and some sense of "I won't ever do this again!" stamped on her frontal lobe. I doubt it though. Social idiocy is virulent and hard to stamp out.
I am pretty excited about Modern even though I have sold off most of my relevant valuables in the format. I am happy to spectate PTs when there is something interesting happening. With dozens of decks competing in the top niches I expect this to be a battle worth watching.
John Friggin Rizzo's Scg article was hilarious. I only wish he'd published it here instead. The man is more funny than he ever was and that is saying something.
There are two board game experiences I'd love to play again/collect. Kings & Things* (circa 1986) and anything by Tim/Jim Games. (2038, fastfood franchise, time agent, etc.)
Sometimes ideas look better on paper. at least you have the guts to demonstrate your brew.
I think you need more discard (Thoughtseize?), card draw (Jace 1? Tezzeret's Gambit?), and access to a hard counter spell (Cryptic Command? Deprive? IDK). Remand is a tempo spell, which I understand in this deck since your goal is to make artifact mana, a Tezz, and then Bust. But you need hard counters for things you don't want to hit the board, ie Titans and/or Corrosion after SB. I think I would cut Wurmcoil entirely from the MD and win with Tezz' Ultimate and Artifacts. Of course, this is theory with no practice...take it how you will, sir
I don't think you should abandon this idea, just make it tighter.
If there was something constructive or positive to be done here I'd be doing it. Arguing with a troll on the internet is neither. I don't know if you read my old neutralground.net article about 'isms' and not just tolerating bad behavior in mtg ("Controversy & Language", circa 11/30 2001: http://outofthebrokensky.com/newart/newarts.asp?ID=29 ) but I do not take a neutral stance to this stuff. The problem is knowing when and how to pick your battles. If what this guy said really riled you, I recommend doing something more constructive. Perhaps write an article, talking about how we can address this more productively without being trolls/fascists ourselves.
Ok, I personally will not play Legacy, Modern, or Classic. It doesn't make sense to spend that much money on the cards that everyone has to play.
My suggestion?
Take standard. Then take the top winning deck of each daily and ban the deck. For example, Valakut wins, but that doesn't mean you can't play Valakut in a red deck or Primeval Titan in a green deck.
So what would happen is that after you get through the "tier 1" decks, people would be forced to use cards and make decks that are completely different than what we have seen.
I don't know how you would control it, or even moderate it, but I think it would make people take a second look at their cards, and think of new and interesting decks. They would still have standard, but it would be interesting to see what people come up with, especially at a time like this when Standard is stale.
So like after the main decks win, you would see an Elf deck win, or mono-blue infect win, or something interesting and cool we haven't seen before.
My favorite part of Magic before I quit 10 years ago and then restarted 6 months ago, was looking at all my cards and try to build a deck out of what I had. It would award people who see value in cards they would normally not look at twice, and who knows, maybe even before Innistrad comes out, we could see a new tier 1 deck.
My other idea, and it's a little more reasonable.
Have a draft style event multiple times daily where you take 30 commons and 15 uncommons and put them in a pile, and bring back something like the Ante games I used to play during the days where Black Lotus's were commonplace. They even made a card just for ante games in, I forget what set, but it was a black card that allowed you to switch out the card you were ante-ing for a card in your hand.
So you take the 40 cards, put them in a big pile, and then shuffle them up and place them in 15 cards piles and draft that.
The cards could be from any set, and (this would be an MTGO only thing) everyone has 900 of each useless commons and uncommons, so you wouldn't mind losing them, and then you play a swiss out of the drafted commons and uncommons, and for an entry fee of 1 ticket + cards, you would win packs of the most current set.
You would be putting cards you have on the line, could pick up some interesting commons and uncommons, lose some cards that you wouldn't miss, and maybe pick up some cool stuff you haven't seen before, and then the smartest deck builder wins because it would be like a standard/classic hybrid mock-ish draft with cards from a lot of sets.
They would also have to set the amount of colors, like there must be like 5 of each, for example.
Now feel free to flame me, I'm sure you will. It's not the best idea, but I think it would be a cool and cheap way to see who is the best player, and not the luckiest, since chances are the cards you are drafting are mostly garbage. I mean nobody is going to put in a playset of Dismember's.
(Not editing this) Guy below me, and the guy below him are calling me an idiot right now. Maybe the third guy finds it interesting, and the 4th guy says I'm an idiot.
I will see pretty soon if Modern is going to be a format I'm going to be interested in. The PT results will be the first sign (and so far that part indicates to "No"), but the decider is how WotC reacts. If they go and ban Cloudpost for example that is another sign that WotC have a different view from mine about what the format should be. If they admit they were very wrong in banning blue cards just to ban them, and in banning strong (but not overpowered) cards like Bitterblossom and therefore unban several of those, then it will look promising to me.
They really should unban the Mind Sculptor, Visions, Misstep and Bitterblossom. I wouldn't even mind if they kept Stoneforge banned for now (although I maintain it is also not overpowered) to unban later and it wouldn't be that terrible to have it banned for ages - but having the 4 mana planeswalker banned IS terrible in my opinion. It is a very potent card but not overpowered at all in this format.
As it is, it is obviously that 4 mana for a Jace and even a turn 3 active Batterskull does not seem so impressive (the few times that would really be happening, with all the good creature removal, artifact removal, bounce, discard, Clique and so on).
With the ban list, there are turn 3/4 ritual combo wins (sometimes turn 2 and they aren't THAT unreliable) and turn 3 Primeval titans (enabling even sillier plays turn 4 and 5). Cascade can pull up a turn 2 or 3 Restore Balance or a LD plan with Living End depending which of those 2 decks is a better Cascade combo. There is even the quirky turn 2 win with Blazing Shoal. And there is always Zoo at a power level quite comparable with Legacy Zoo (same creatures) - which is actually playable even in the midst of all this silliness, and also quite capable of competing with UW Stoneforge/Jace decks. So how exactly would Jace be overpowered?
I'm so torn with Modern. On the one hand, it is great that there is a reasonably cheap competitive deck in 12 post. On the other hand, the deck itself is an abomination,. It has exactly the same problems as the Valakut decks which they banned, except it is almost immune to traditional hand disruption and conditional counters. The fact that so many decks are running extensive land death main and board is definitely a warning sign, and probably an impending ban.
The format is actually faster than Legacy right now, because in Legacy combo decks have to worry about counterspells. What Modern really needs is viable control decks to keep the endless combo decks honest, aggro is not a good foil to combo.
Do you think the ProTour will establish a stable metagame from the decks already knwon and piloted on MTGO or do you think someone will suprise the Magic world with an unseen deck that beats them all?
I'm really liking the DFC's ... although I do see the other posters point about it warping IRL draft. I like this idea of slower tempo cards that just make the game generally more interesting, a deck that is fast and wins the game in 6 turns or less is boring to me.
I can see how this mechanic is going to give me many hours of enjoyment just playing it. Then again I play to enjoy myself, not to win!
I think in this standard, you put it in a mono blue deck with counters and swords, it will rake.
Not to mention the only things that kill it are Black Sun Zenith, and that card from NPH that deals 2 damage to all non-artifact creatures which I think nobody knows about.
I like it, and that's coming from someone who played when Force of Will, Pyromancy, Wasteland, and Fact or Fiction were new. I don't know, maybe I'm the kind of guy who just likes getting the most for your mana, and getting 2 abilities for 2 mana? That sounds pretty good to me. Especially with Sword of Feast and Famine, or go the mill route with Spa of Body and Mind.
Yeah sadly it is a bit too expensive, but I miss it. Lots of fun with the original in mid 80s.
does anyone else feel the new Vault release is total gar-bahj? i can't believe anyone would pay that much for those cards.
A new edition of Kings & Things was put out just a couple years ago, look for it!
I have a lot of fond memories of that game, as I play tested an early version at a Tom Wham event at Gencon, and when it was finally published a couples friends of mine did some of the art for it. I got the new edition for my birthday, insisted on it!
How are you not playing bribery for 12-post?
Problem solved.
Whats up jacob!
Well I'm in the same boat as you are with building something and then getting wrecked by 12 post. Hopefully after PT:Philly we'll know more about the format.... but i think all signs point to 12 post and zoo. :(
As for sphinx comment he is WAY to slow for the format as you can see from the games 12 post doesn't care and all it needs to do is drop Emakural and its over and zoo is too fast.
Great article as always.
One comment/idea on the RAV duals being reprinted that you brought up (well, actually two things that kind of go together):
I'm not positive WOTC wanted to initiate modern when it did. It seems like a somewhat rushed thing since "Extended" was a pretty bad and boring format that no one really wanted to play. So, they may have wanted to reprint the RAV duals before they started modern, but were forced to start modern before they had planned.
The second thing on RAV duals is that I don't think there was ever any chance they would allow the RAV duals and the Zendikar fetches to be in the same standard format. The mana fixing would be ridiculous, and decks would just jam as much broken stuff together as they could find (or all the other cards would have to be much worse, or much more color intensive). So, I'm not surprised they have not been printed in a core set yet, but I don't think that means they never will. There's also a decent to good chance they will revisit Ravnica in the next few years, so maybe we will see them back there (although that seems too predictable even for them).
I agree with apaulogy that you should have thought this through a little more. The baseline idea isn't actually that bad, it's sort of like a no-rares cube draft, which could include multiples of different cards. The color balancing isn't the only problem. You say 5 of each, but I could bring 5 doom blades or 5 disentombs, huge power level difference. I could nerf all but one color with the cards I bring. Anyway, I don't want to discourage you from thinking outside of the box, but please do try to think of the consequences of your ideas
On that note - about ante: WOTC had to eliminate ante from the game because it essentially made playing gambling, which is illegal in many places in the world. You probably have missed this over the last couple years, but they even had to give out prizes of TVs and video game systems instead of money at German GP's because of gambling issues. Bringing back ante (even to online), is just not feasible from a legal standpoint for WOTC.
"Now feel free to flame me, I'm sure you will. It's not the best idea, but I think it would be a cool and cheap way to see who is the best player, and not the luckiest, since chances are the cards you are drafting are mostly garbage. I mean nobody is going to put in a playset of Dismember's.
(Not editing this) Guy below me, and the guy below him are calling me an idiot right now. Maybe the third guy finds it interesting, and the 4th guy says I'm an idiot"
This is just unnecessary.
I don't think you have vetted any of these ideas either. Do you understand the administrative nightmares you have just concocted? I realize that you are trying to come up with solutions, but I think that one thing you should ask yourself before posting these ideas is "How difficult would this be to administer?"
This is not a flame or anything like that. It is an appeal for logic.
"I gotta go my friends are here, and I have no idea which seat I should take."
Well, if they weren't kickin' in the front seat while simultaneously kickin' in the back seat, this would be a nonchoice. LOL.
RE: Peter Szigeti- this is sad. I always enjoyed hearing about the ridiculous things that would come from this guy. I especially loved the Searing Flesh incident. Sorry. If that happened to me, I would have rofl't. Truly sad.
RE: "Finkelgate"- Lame. I wish this wouldn't have happened because it demonstrates that even intelligent people (gamers in this context) can be dupes to media smokescreens. Obvious troll blog was obvious. Hurtin' for web traffic Gizmodo? U mad, bro? Kudos to Jon for starting a nonprofit. I wonder if they are hiring...
RE: Having your child for three weeks- I have been keeping a journal of the classic stuff my daughter says. I recommend this because it will be a device for embarrassment in their teenage years. Plus, you will have the precociousness documented. Who doesn't love precociousness?
Thanks for this entry, sir.
Best one yet. Sad about <ptr> spiritual grandfather to most internet mtg trolls as he was. (There were others doing it, back when he was honing this odd skill but he did it better than most and got a lot of negative attention heaped on him for it. He took being a jerk to all new levels on irc.)
Kudos to Jon for his charity. Can I still qualify? :p
Kudos also to Pikula for being his usual self.
Finkeldate was a long bad joke and though it is funny because of its absurdity I look forward to not hearing about it anymore. I hope that "writer" goes back to obscurity with head bowed and some sense of "I won't ever do this again!" stamped on her frontal lobe. I doubt it though. Social idiocy is virulent and hard to stamp out.
I am pretty excited about Modern even though I have sold off most of my relevant valuables in the format. I am happy to spectate PTs when there is something interesting happening. With dozens of decks competing in the top niches I expect this to be a battle worth watching.
John Friggin Rizzo's Scg article was hilarious. I only wish he'd published it here instead. The man is more funny than he ever was and that is saying something.
There are two board game experiences I'd love to play again/collect. Kings & Things* (circa 1986) and anything by Tim/Jim Games. (2038, fastfood franchise, time agent, etc.)
Sometimes ideas look better on paper. at least you have the guts to demonstrate your brew.
I think you need more discard (Thoughtseize?), card draw (Jace 1? Tezzeret's Gambit?), and access to a hard counter spell (Cryptic Command? Deprive? IDK). Remand is a tempo spell, which I understand in this deck since your goal is to make artifact mana, a Tezz, and then Bust. But you need hard counters for things you don't want to hit the board, ie Titans and/or Corrosion after SB. I think I would cut Wurmcoil entirely from the MD and win with Tezz' Ultimate and Artifacts. Of course, this is theory with no practice...take it how you will, sir
I don't think you should abandon this idea, just make it tighter.
Good work.
Looks like it might have trouble with tempered steel and possibly UW. Where is Consecrated Sphinx?
If there was something constructive or positive to be done here I'd be doing it. Arguing with a troll on the internet is neither. I don't know if you read my old neutralground.net article about 'isms' and not just tolerating bad behavior in mtg ("Controversy & Language", circa 11/30 2001: http://outofthebrokensky.com/newart/newarts.asp?ID=29 ) but I do not take a neutral stance to this stuff. The problem is knowing when and how to pick your battles. If what this guy said really riled you, I recommend doing something more constructive. Perhaps write an article, talking about how we can address this more productively without being trolls/fascists ourselves.
An enjoyable read, thanks.
I wish you son a speedy recovery Thursday. Enjoy your three weeks together.
Ok, I personally will not play Legacy, Modern, or Classic. It doesn't make sense to spend that much money on the cards that everyone has to play.
My suggestion?
Take standard. Then take the top winning deck of each daily and ban the deck. For example, Valakut wins, but that doesn't mean you can't play Valakut in a red deck or Primeval Titan in a green deck.
So what would happen is that after you get through the "tier 1" decks, people would be forced to use cards and make decks that are completely different than what we have seen.
I don't know how you would control it, or even moderate it, but I think it would make people take a second look at their cards, and think of new and interesting decks. They would still have standard, but it would be interesting to see what people come up with, especially at a time like this when Standard is stale.
So like after the main decks win, you would see an Elf deck win, or mono-blue infect win, or something interesting and cool we haven't seen before.
My favorite part of Magic before I quit 10 years ago and then restarted 6 months ago, was looking at all my cards and try to build a deck out of what I had. It would award people who see value in cards they would normally not look at twice, and who knows, maybe even before Innistrad comes out, we could see a new tier 1 deck.
My other idea, and it's a little more reasonable.
Have a draft style event multiple times daily where you take 30 commons and 15 uncommons and put them in a pile, and bring back something like the Ante games I used to play during the days where Black Lotus's were commonplace. They even made a card just for ante games in, I forget what set, but it was a black card that allowed you to switch out the card you were ante-ing for a card in your hand.
So you take the 40 cards, put them in a big pile, and then shuffle them up and place them in 15 cards piles and draft that.
The cards could be from any set, and (this would be an MTGO only thing) everyone has 900 of each useless commons and uncommons, so you wouldn't mind losing them, and then you play a swiss out of the drafted commons and uncommons, and for an entry fee of 1 ticket + cards, you would win packs of the most current set.
You would be putting cards you have on the line, could pick up some interesting commons and uncommons, lose some cards that you wouldn't miss, and maybe pick up some cool stuff you haven't seen before, and then the smartest deck builder wins because it would be like a standard/classic hybrid mock-ish draft with cards from a lot of sets.
They would also have to set the amount of colors, like there must be like 5 of each, for example.
Now feel free to flame me, I'm sure you will. It's not the best idea, but I think it would be a cool and cheap way to see who is the best player, and not the luckiest, since chances are the cards you are drafting are mostly garbage. I mean nobody is going to put in a playset of Dismember's.
(Not editing this) Guy below me, and the guy below him are calling me an idiot right now. Maybe the third guy finds it interesting, and the 4th guy says I'm an idiot.
I will see pretty soon if Modern is going to be a format I'm going to be interested in. The PT results will be the first sign (and so far that part indicates to "No"), but the decider is how WotC reacts. If they go and ban Cloudpost for example that is another sign that WotC have a different view from mine about what the format should be. If they admit they were very wrong in banning blue cards just to ban them, and in banning strong (but not overpowered) cards like Bitterblossom and therefore unban several of those, then it will look promising to me.
They really should unban the Mind Sculptor, Visions, Misstep and Bitterblossom. I wouldn't even mind if they kept Stoneforge banned for now (although I maintain it is also not overpowered) to unban later and it wouldn't be that terrible to have it banned for ages - but having the 4 mana planeswalker banned IS terrible in my opinion. It is a very potent card but not overpowered at all in this format.
As it is, it is obviously that 4 mana for a Jace and even a turn 3 active Batterskull does not seem so impressive (the few times that would really be happening, with all the good creature removal, artifact removal, bounce, discard, Clique and so on).
With the ban list, there are turn 3/4 ritual combo wins (sometimes turn 2 and they aren't THAT unreliable) and turn 3 Primeval titans (enabling even sillier plays turn 4 and 5). Cascade can pull up a turn 2 or 3 Restore Balance or a LD plan with Living End depending which of those 2 decks is a better Cascade combo. There is even the quirky turn 2 win with Blazing Shoal. And there is always Zoo at a power level quite comparable with Legacy Zoo (same creatures) - which is actually playable even in the midst of all this silliness, and also quite capable of competing with UW Stoneforge/Jace decks. So how exactly would Jace be overpowered?
Ivo.
I'm so torn with Modern. On the one hand, it is great that there is a reasonably cheap competitive deck in 12 post. On the other hand, the deck itself is an abomination,. It has exactly the same problems as the Valakut decks which they banned, except it is almost immune to traditional hand disruption and conditional counters. The fact that so many decks are running extensive land death main and board is definitely a warning sign, and probably an impending ban.
The format is actually faster than Legacy right now, because in Legacy combo decks have to worry about counterspells. What Modern really needs is viable control decks to keep the endless combo decks honest, aggro is not a good foil to combo.
the standard rotation cannot arrive soon enough. i am so curious to see what will become of it when zen rotates out. no more caw blade! yeah!!!!
Modern events are listed on the Premier Event calendar. At least for now until they update the main calendar.
No mention of this being the last week of Urza drafts?
I disagree... we give sexism too much of a pass in our hobbies as it is.
Do you think the ProTour will establish a stable metagame from the decks already knwon and piloted on MTGO or do you think someone will suprise the Magic world with an unseen deck that beats them all?
no sol ring? lol story bro.
I'm really liking the DFC's ... although I do see the other posters point about it warping IRL draft. I like this idea of slower tempo cards that just make the game generally more interesting, a deck that is fast and wins the game in 6 turns or less is boring to me.
I can see how this mechanic is going to give me many hours of enjoyment just playing it. Then again I play to enjoy myself, not to win!
And the theme for Innistrad is super cool :)
But the Illusion deck has already proven this...and it didn't need swords
Card that deals 2 damage to non artifact creatures from NPH = Whipflare aka "I Whip my Flare back and forth".
I think in this standard, you put it in a mono blue deck with counters and swords, it will rake.
Not to mention the only things that kill it are Black Sun Zenith, and that card from NPH that deals 2 damage to all non-artifact creatures which I think nobody knows about.
I like it, and that's coming from someone who played when Force of Will, Pyromancy, Wasteland, and Fact or Fiction were new. I don't know, maybe I'm the kind of guy who just likes getting the most for your mana, and getting 2 abilities for 2 mana? That sounds pretty good to me. Especially with Sword of Feast and Famine, or go the mill route with Spa of Body and Mind.