it isn't an "official" format..yet.. if modern(which is overextended from what I understand) becomes a real WotC format, supported, etc.. it will take off
You keep mentioning modern and overextended, but the reality is very very very few people play those formats. Certainly not nearly enough to affect prices on any cards. Any price fluctuation on those is due to commander and casual players where those same cards are used all the time.
I miss the old extended, that was a format that was fun and highly played.
Standard Singleton ran 100% back when it was a weekend challenge. 100c Singleron wasn't much behind. Yes the payoffs got worse with the switch, but the bigger problem - which I predicted immediately on announcement - is that the people were spread over too many events to build critical mass. Instead of 30 people at one time they got 10 people each, 6 times. Thus instead of one tournament firing once, they get 6 firing never. And those who were regulars in the format certainly aren't thinking about it anymore.
Wizards may hire smart people, but they still do dumb things sometimes...
I don't know if this qualifies as "crashing," but my experience with the Community Cup Planeswalker Event was pretty miserable, because the program kept disconnecting me without notification - I had to try to do something, like type in the chat window, to discover I was no longer connected. I haven't had this happen in a long time, in any other event, because I have a fairly fast broadband connection. In my opinion, the "stress test" was a failure, and they should have done a collection of smaller events.
I wonder if any of those accounts that got disconnected for lack of activity got a warning? It's against the terms of service to join an event and not play. In any event, I'm dismayed that so many people were willing to hurt their fellow players just for a free pack of M11. Next year, I'd like to see them go back to a free draft set; I had fun doing old Mirrodin block draft last year. This time was a lot of trouble for little payoff.
Actually more standard daily events would be fine. Daily events run on a fixed Ev value, Wizards doesn't lose value or gain value (proportionally) in a 16 player event vs say 64 player event.
So it is in their best interest to have more options for players who want to play dailies. Having 60 dailies a week that average 64 players would be better than 40 a week at 80 players.
Cannibalizing is only a downside if you can't hit the 16 player mark which standard (and sometimes block - when it is a good format - not now) should be able to hit. Right now often I can't play in a daily after work because the 4 hour blocks are clunky.
Now maybe im just dreaming here...but what would the interaction between Myr Welder and Sundial of the infinite bring? Does it come with the only use during your turn..or just end the turn?
I probably play the deck that it's the best against (Tendrils), and, in my experience, it really depends on the deck you're playing it in.
In fish decks it's absolutely awesome. It protects their creatures really well, it protects their FoW/Stifle from duress, etc.
In most other decks, I feel like it could be pretty much any other blue card and have the same effect, and spell pierce would almost always be better. Yeah, occasionally I really needed that Vampiric/Ritual to resolve, but more often than not it's not the 1 mana spells that matter in those games, it's the 2 mana and 0 mana spells.
Also...as far as un-restricting Necro because of it...Classic has plenty of games ending turn 1 with restricted Necro, unrestricted I think most storm decks would have the game locked up turn 1 (not even saying storm would be the deck, but having every game go to the coin flip against storm isn't much fun).
Aaaaaaand, next week we have a Daily to discuss! OMFG! Wonders never cease. ;]
Regarding the spoilers... I agree mostly with Zach: not much to see here. NPH was a way stronger set with a lot more cool possibilities. I see a few goodies for Legacy, perhaps, but "Overcosted-Dude-With-Cool-Ability".card is really played out.
George, I see what you're saying about Skinshifter being a cheap Goyf, but I think Zach's point is that people who play Classic are not going to play Skinshifter over Goyf. GW Hate is the only deck that could use this card as a budget option (Fish, a deck with Force of friggin Will, is probably not looking for budget options... and if you have Force, your budget option to Tarmogoyf is call Oath of Druids) and GW Hate is not putting up numbers at all, and particularly, the newest players we see in the format are usually playing something like Shops.
Empty the Warrens:
Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens into play.
Storm (When you play this spell, copy it for each spell played before it this turn.)
I cannot deny that beginning the game is an advantage in this format. I truly hated those times when my opponent played his third turn Blightning while I had two Absorbs in hand and could do nothing. And to avoid that, I added my Negates and Flashfreezes to the deck; meaning four two mana counters.
Another problem was Troll Ascetic. You can't target it and it wasen't dying to Eearthquake (which was a card I had in my earlier versions)! I was facing it so often, so that I decided to do something. I didn't mention this in the article but first I tried Emeria Angel. Sadly she was dying too often and too easily. And then I added Mnemonic Wall and solved that problem.
With the final version of the deck you see above, I played maybe over 50 games against Jund and Elves in total. I lost only a couple. Too bad that one occured during the tournament.
Nice deck and writeup - it seems as if your deck is better by leaps and bounds when going first, particularly against the two format bogeymen (Jund and Elves), does that match your experience? Any way to shore that up?
well Mike wants exclusive content, i want it available to people outside CQ. Done told him to link my youtube channel to CQ. By all means point people at my channel, its whiffypenguin.
!!
I would like to have seen these particular video's perma-linked on a section of the classicquarter.com - perhaps on a new tab with a snap shot overview of the format for new players.
So, my VPN got fixed and I could finally watch these videos. Pretty good for an overview. It's too bad these articles seem to disappear into nothingness after a few days. It would be nice to keep something like this around where it's easily seen by newcomers.
20 swamps is perfectly okay and as you said, with the amount of tutors, I never have issues getting me my Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
The combo I run is perfectly okay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. All I don't like to play myself is instant win cards. Sorin Markov comes down and basically kills a player and there is nothing one can do about it. That's something I try to avoid in my commander decks. It's okay if you play him, it's okay if you Sorin Markov first and then cast an X=10 Exsanguinate. I just don't do that.
The combo I run can easily be destroyed. All colors have answers to it. As a matter of fact, it has been destroyed many times before and I was kind of surprised that no none did anything against it in the game above.
I always play with the chat tab closed so I never see who's watching.
Icoff or others: storm or storm mechanic is mentioned several times but I see no mention of a card containing the word storm in Icoffs deck. Could someone elaborate?
This deck is pure sweetness. Just goes to show that there's a lot more room to innovate than people give the format credit for
it isn't an "official" format..yet.. if modern(which is overextended from what I understand) becomes a real WotC format, supported, etc.. it will take off
Ick, sorry about the link and card image problems. Not really sure what went wrong with the links that weren't M12...
You keep mentioning modern and overextended, but the reality is very very very few people play those formats. Certainly not nearly enough to affect prices on any cards. Any price fluctuation on those is due to commander and casual players where those same cards are used all the time.
I miss the old extended, that was a format that was fun and highly played.
Standard Singleton ran 100% back when it was a weekend challenge. 100c Singleron wasn't much behind. Yes the payoffs got worse with the switch, but the bigger problem - which I predicted immediately on announcement - is that the people were spread over too many events to build critical mass. Instead of 30 people at one time they got 10 people each, 6 times. Thus instead of one tournament firing once, they get 6 firing never. And those who were regulars in the format certainly aren't thinking about it anymore.
Wizards may hire smart people, but they still do dumb things sometimes...
I don't know if this qualifies as "crashing," but my experience with the Community Cup Planeswalker Event was pretty miserable, because the program kept disconnecting me without notification - I had to try to do something, like type in the chat window, to discover I was no longer connected. I haven't had this happen in a long time, in any other event, because I have a fairly fast broadband connection. In my opinion, the "stress test" was a failure, and they should have done a collection of smaller events.
I wonder if any of those accounts that got disconnected for lack of activity got a warning? It's against the terms of service to join an event and not play. In any event, I'm dismayed that so many people were willing to hurt their fellow players just for a free pack of M11. Next year, I'd like to see them go back to a free draft set; I had fun doing old Mirrodin block draft last year. This time was a lot of trouble for little payoff.
They are now selling Commander decks so they have to "officially" support multiplayer. That is my guess there.
Tezz isn't quite Jace 2.0, but he is pretty darn good.
Actually more standard daily events would be fine. Daily events run on a fixed Ev value, Wizards doesn't lose value or gain value (proportionally) in a 16 player event vs say 64 player event.
So it is in their best interest to have more options for players who want to play dailies. Having 60 dailies a week that average 64 players would be better than 40 a week at 80 players.
Cannibalizing is only a downside if you can't hit the 16 player mark which standard (and sometimes block - when it is a good format - not now) should be able to hit. Right now often I can't play in a daily after work because the 4 hour blocks are clunky.
Keep up the great work! Thanks
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
sds
Good conversation as always.
Now maybe im just dreaming here...but what would the interaction between Myr Welder and Sundial of the infinite bring? Does it come with the only use during your turn..or just end the turn?
I probably play the deck that it's the best against (Tendrils), and, in my experience, it really depends on the deck you're playing it in.
In fish decks it's absolutely awesome. It protects their creatures really well, it protects their FoW/Stifle from duress, etc.
In most other decks, I feel like it could be pretty much any other blue card and have the same effect, and spell pierce would almost always be better. Yeah, occasionally I really needed that Vampiric/Ritual to resolve, but more often than not it's not the 1 mana spells that matter in those games, it's the 2 mana and 0 mana spells.
Also...as far as un-restricting Necro because of it...Classic has plenty of games ending turn 1 with restricted Necro, unrestricted I think most storm decks would have the game locked up turn 1 (not even saying storm would be the deck, but having every game go to the coin flip against storm isn't much fun).
Aaaaaaand, next week we have a Daily to discuss! OMFG! Wonders never cease. ;]
Regarding the spoilers... I agree mostly with Zach: not much to see here. NPH was a way stronger set with a lot more cool possibilities. I see a few goodies for Legacy, perhaps, but "Overcosted-Dude-With-Cool-Ability".card is really played out.
George, I see what you're saying about Skinshifter being a cheap Goyf, but I think Zach's point is that people who play Classic are not going to play Skinshifter over Goyf. GW Hate is the only deck that could use this card as a budget option (Fish, a deck with Force of friggin Will, is probably not looking for budget options... and if you have Force, your budget option to Tarmogoyf is call Oath of Druids) and GW Hate is not putting up numbers at all, and particularly, the newest players we see in the format are usually playing something like Shops.
Zach I am with you all the way. I think MM is an absolute house. It has won me multiple games allowing me to win the counter war.
Shoath has to come secondary to Show and Hold now that Commander decks are out!
MTGO for iPad/Mac.
I could give them money when I'm on the go, rather than when I'm just at home.
Empty the Warrens:
Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens into play.
Storm (When you play this spell, copy it for each spell played before it this turn.)
Thank you for your comment.
I cannot deny that beginning the game is an advantage in this format. I truly hated those times when my opponent played his third turn Blightning while I had two Absorbs in hand and could do nothing. And to avoid that, I added my Negates and Flashfreezes to the deck; meaning four two mana counters.
Another problem was Troll Ascetic. You can't target it and it wasen't dying to Eearthquake (which was a card I had in my earlier versions)! I was facing it so often, so that I decided to do something. I didn't mention this in the article but first I tried Emeria Angel. Sadly she was dying too often and too easily. And then I added Mnemonic Wall and solved that problem.
With the final version of the deck you see above, I played maybe over 50 games against Jund and Elves in total. I lost only a couple. Too bad that one occured during the tournament.
Thank you again for your comment.
LE
Nice deck and writeup - it seems as if your deck is better by leaps and bounds when going first, particularly against the two format bogeymen (Jund and Elves), does that match your experience? Any way to shore that up?
well Mike wants exclusive content, i want it available to people outside CQ. Done told him to link my youtube channel to CQ. By all means point people at my channel, its whiffypenguin.
!!
I would like to have seen these particular video's perma-linked on a section of the classicquarter.com - perhaps on a new tab with a snap shot overview of the format for new players.
Perhaps Mike and George can thrash something out.
So, my VPN got fixed and I could finally watch these videos. Pretty good for an overview. It's too bad these articles seem to disappear into nothingness after a few days. It would be nice to keep something like this around where it's easily seen by newcomers.
First of all, thanks for the comments.
20 swamps is perfectly okay and as you said, with the amount of tutors, I never have issues getting me my Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
The combo I run is perfectly okay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. All I don't like to play myself is instant win cards. Sorin Markov comes down and basically kills a player and there is nothing one can do about it. That's something I try to avoid in my commander decks. It's okay if you play him, it's okay if you Sorin Markov first and then cast an X=10 Exsanguinate. I just don't do that.
The combo I run can easily be destroyed. All colors have answers to it. As a matter of fact, it has been destroyed many times before and I was kind of surprised that no none did anything against it in the game above.
I always play with the chat tab closed so I never see who's watching.
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
Icoff or others: storm or storm mechanic is mentioned several times but I see no mention of a card containing the word storm in Icoffs deck. Could someone elaborate?