He's not going to get banned. The reason affinity got banned was because people stopped showing up to tournaments, and no one bought Champions block stuff because well, why bother with new cards if they can not beat the top deck no matter what you did. I mean RG Freshmaker was a deck. It was built to beat affinity, and it sometimes did that.
Jace is not causing people to stop playing in events. One could argue that the period of growth that magic has seen recently is countering the fact that Jace or something should be banned.
I understand that having 32 copies of a card in the top eight is fine, all the good players are winning and that is fine. The purpose of Gp's and PT's and SCG opens in my mind are all marketing related anyways. When those tournaments start to take hits then I think action will be taken, until then, or NPH comes and shows it can handle the walker (or not) I believe that jace will remain safe.
Whiffy, was that directed at me? It isn't just card price, although, for starters, Force of Will, which is in every deck I would want to play, is ridiculously expensive and hasn't been reprinted since ME1, which was cut off before a reasonable run. Lion's Eye Diamond, Wasteland, Null Rod, all far more expensive then they should be. You can't compare paper prices, Candelabra is a 4 ticket rare.
Rishadan port isn't online because they don't care or are lazy. If you think they reprinted duals to help legacy, you are naive, it was for Commander, and so people would actually buy the packs, since there was nothing else of value in ME4.
Dailies barely fire, 2 man's barely fire, no one has ever played a legacy 8-man. There simply aren't enough FOW online for the format to become reasonably popular.
I want them to reprint legacy staples and make it a grand prix/ptq season instead of extended which is terrible.
i appreciate your input and commentary :-). just want to say i brought up the other cards just for comparison on the effect they had on the format.. so i didnt feel like they needed to be format specific. and yea i can see your point on the card advantage thing. i suppose my word selection was off. perhaps what i really meant to say was "overall advantage" lol. thx tho--i wasn't really going for accuracy, more just trying to point out jace's good points. i'll make sure to stress that more nxt time.
yea good points. mythics being restricted to a copy wouldnt be so bad. theyd be more mythic and could be potentially more of a playable "bomb" in the future then what they already are
lol dont worry i wont flame. i'm open to opinions. when i wrote the article if anything i wanted to stir up a discussion before the next big standard outing. jace is beatable. my real issue is that he was designed to be a tourny staple. and he is. wizards is well aware of the environment they place new cards in. jace coming in and being awesome now in a slower meta isn't a co-ink-e-dink
I would love to join classic events, but it isn't even an option for me.
I have a young family that just doesn't allow me to sit and play magic for concentrated amounts of time. Until my children get older it will be difficult to get into an event.
Keep up the good work on the podcasts guys. I am missing the discussion on classic events though.
Also like the Show and Tell / Yawg Bargain tech. Will take your deck for a spin.
Your statement assumes that the player pool increases equivalent to the card pool. If the card pool was increased say, %300 there is no way that the players who want these cards wouldn't be able to get them much cheaper as all the collector's would be forced to sell their +4 copies. There is really only two options for firing more events... Increase cardpool, which would increase player pool(though not equivalently) or increase the prize payout, which we know they aren't going to do. This is simple enconomics, I really don't understand how so many people don't get it....or perhaps they are speculator/collectors themselves and can't separate the two??
I think that all mythic cards should be ruled as one of cards. sure it might change the pricing of such rares, but it would make a more balanced game in the end. It would also be a simple rule to understand. mythic's = one of. They could even make more powerful mythic's knowing that they are going to be automatically restricted. having four of's with mythic cards kind of hurts the flavor for me. just my opinion.
what else to you want them to do? just give you free cards? they reprinted the duals so that there basically worthless, and its still almost 100-300 dollars cheaper per deck on average then paper legacy.
I think it will have a pretty big impact on storm based combos as well. Not to mention that it can counter that turn 1 vial or top.
I'm not sure this is the best way to look at it, but if they are using misstep to counter my stifle, then I feel like I've already gained in that aspect. Sure, I lose a little tempo advantage, which is obv important, but now they get rid of a counter and I can feel more confidant swording their dude if I'm splashing white or playing New Horizons.
Like I said, it's tough knowing exactly how the meta will react to the card, but one thing is for sure, things are gonna change.
I'm not saying they won't, but Stifle is based on tempo (Not counting combo stifle-naught decks) and previously people were forced to either play around stifle or wasteland, but not both. Now they can actually play around both with a misstep in hand.
I believe it will have a slow-down effect on legacy, since on the draw you can now Misstep into Spell-Snare. This is pretty bad for most tempo based aggro decks (Not Merfolk) but pretty great for most disruptive decks, like Team America or NO Bant. Who knows, maybe 2cc T1 plays will be the rage, so Mox Diamond and City of Traitors/Tomb decks take over? Just curious since I don't get to play a lot of legacy due to MTGO having such bad legacy support.
Misstep will def change the face of legacy, not sure if it will keep people from playing stifle based decks, but its quite possible that stifle based decks play misstep as well.
First, nothing in any format but vintage is even capable of being restricted, it just doesn't exist as a reasonable possibility, they either ban or let you play 4. It isn't a hard rule written anywhere, but restricted lists were causing problems due to player confusion, so they got rid of it except where necessary, vintage.
If you want to talk about cards being banned, you might want to stick with the format in which they were banned. Sword of the meek was unplayable in standard, it just so happens it was a combo with a card printed several blocks after rotation. This actually happens in extended a lot, I don't think even Necropotence got banned in standard, although standard was far different. Affinity.dec or Skullclamp are cards more recently banned from standard.
Mythics aren't the problem, they do not significantly change the cost of most decks, they just change how much certain cards in each deck cost. People were complaining about Baneslayer being too powerful when it was 50, same with Elspeth, and then they were reprinted and people started playing cards that beat them and they weren't as good. Jace just happens to be from a middle set that was drafted less due to ROE being incompatible with Zendikar and Worldwake. There are less copies and he is heavily played, so he costs a lot. Bceause of the demand for Jace, so many cards are cheaper, like Elspeth, Venser, Koth, Tezzeret, Lotus Cobra, etc, and all rares have been cheaper since Mythics made the scene.
Finally, the analysis of Jace is way off. +2 is Card Selection, not advantage. 0- Is card advantage and selection. -1 is usually referred to as tempo, there is no such thing as "physical card advantage". -12 Does basically win you the game, although again, it isn't really "card advantage" unless they had a hand full of spells, in which case they probably could have stopped you from ticking up Jace for 5 turns.
Card advantage is mostly a limited concept anyway, constructed decks don't care about how many cards you have, because the strength of cards in constructed is so high, one or two cards can easily win you the game. That's why Preordain sees play in all formats (Card Selection) and Foresee, which is card selection AND advantage, sees play only in limited.
Interesting deck, but mind sludge seems a little out of place, it is one of those extremely powerful cards that are highly situational. Cards that don't impact the board that cost more than one or two are most of the time not maindeck material, I feel the same way about Mimic Vat. Also hurting Mind Sludge is the amount of spell pierces being played, it is absolutely crushing tempo wise to have a spell like that pierced. You can always run more discard to avoid this, but those effects are so bad as the game goes long, and against aggressive decks, I can't say I recommend it.
Gatekeeper of Malakir and Bloodhusk Ritualist allow you to play dual lands and are not dead draws once your opponent has no cards in hand.
There is also very little reason to run 2 colors unless they are allied, the mana is so bad for enemy colors you can splash a third color at almost no cost to the mana base other than fewer basics (making mind sludge worse however). Other than the highly played RUG, the BUG base is very strong, as is "Jund" and while lotus cobra isn't required, it is excellent when paired with black due to inquisition -> cobra. I believe there was a successful jund build recently running Lotus Cobra, Abyssal Persecutor, Garruk, Liliana, Sarkhan and Chandra.
I'm personally not as big a fan of Sylvan Ranger, I think these decks tend to want Phyrexian Rager more, but there is probably room for both. I think the format is too fast and there is too much removal to make mimic vat playable, but feel free to prove me wrong.
They changed the report a bug feature to something a bit more complex and annoying but that should be where you go to report it. (I can't believe they cornered that domain name btw.)
"The one fact that remains and has yet to be disputed/discredited is simply this: If there were more of these cards in the market place they would be cheaper, which in turn would allow more players to own them, which in turn would cause more events to fire..."
Which in turn would cause more demand for the cards, which in turn would increase the price of the card again, along with every other card needed for the same deck that wasn't reprinted. Which in turn doesn't solve the problem.
pyretic ritual is cheaper than the desperate one, and functions the same in this deck(i don't like relying on two of the same card, but you make a valid point about arcane...i will search for other arcanes that might take the place of other spells here) and the promo remand is cheaper than the rav one... you know me, always complaining about card prices:)
He's not going to get banned. The reason affinity got banned was because people stopped showing up to tournaments, and no one bought Champions block stuff because well, why bother with new cards if they can not beat the top deck no matter what you did. I mean RG Freshmaker was a deck. It was built to beat affinity, and it sometimes did that.
Jace is not causing people to stop playing in events. One could argue that the period of growth that magic has seen recently is countering the fact that Jace or something should be banned.
I understand that having 32 copies of a card in the top eight is fine, all the good players are winning and that is fine. The purpose of Gp's and PT's and SCG opens in my mind are all marketing related anyways. When those tournaments start to take hits then I think action will be taken, until then, or NPH comes and shows it can handle the walker (or not) I believe that jace will remain safe.
Like the videos, but I had one comment and a question.
I don't know if it is just me but I can barely hear you during your videos. And secondly, why make the videos on youtube unlisted?
Me too, Im not proud :p
I will take free cards. :p
Whiffy, was that directed at me? It isn't just card price, although, for starters, Force of Will, which is in every deck I would want to play, is ridiculously expensive and hasn't been reprinted since ME1, which was cut off before a reasonable run. Lion's Eye Diamond, Wasteland, Null Rod, all far more expensive then they should be. You can't compare paper prices, Candelabra is a 4 ticket rare.
Rishadan port isn't online because they don't care or are lazy. If you think they reprinted duals to help legacy, you are naive, it was for Commander, and so people would actually buy the packs, since there was nothing else of value in ME4.
Dailies barely fire, 2 man's barely fire, no one has ever played a legacy 8-man. There simply aren't enough FOW online for the format to become reasonably popular.
I want them to reprint legacy staples and make it a grand prix/ptq season instead of extended which is terrible.
yea i also doubt there will be an action. one can dream though. jace passing from standard will come soon enough.
i appreciate your input and commentary :-). just want to say i brought up the other cards just for comparison on the effect they had on the format.. so i didnt feel like they needed to be format specific. and yea i can see your point on the card advantage thing. i suppose my word selection was off. perhaps what i really meant to say was "overall advantage" lol. thx tho--i wasn't really going for accuracy, more just trying to point out jace's good points. i'll make sure to stress that more nxt time.
yea good points. mythics being restricted to a copy wouldnt be so bad. theyd be more mythic and could be potentially more of a playable "bomb" in the future then what they already are
lol dont worry i wont flame. i'm open to opinions. when i wrote the article if anything i wanted to stir up a discussion before the next big standard outing. jace is beatable. my real issue is that he was designed to be a tourny staple. and he is. wizards is well aware of the environment they place new cards in. jace coming in and being awesome now in a slower meta isn't a co-ink-e-dink
I would love to join classic events, but it isn't even an option for me.
I have a young family that just doesn't allow me to sit and play magic for concentrated amounts of time. Until my children get older it will be difficult to get into an event.
Keep up the good work on the podcasts guys. I am missing the discussion on classic events though.
Also like the Show and Tell / Yawg Bargain tech. Will take your deck for a spin.
Happy Easter All!
That doesn't surprise me. I also won't be at all surprised when Jace the bigger isn't banned.
another top 8, another 32 jaces hanging out in the top eight.
Your statement assumes that the player pool increases equivalent to the card pool. If the card pool was increased say, %300 there is no way that the players who want these cards wouldn't be able to get them much cheaper as all the collector's would be forced to sell their +4 copies. There is really only two options for firing more events... Increase cardpool, which would increase player pool(though not equivalently) or increase the prize payout, which we know they aren't going to do. This is simple enconomics, I really don't understand how so many people don't get it....or perhaps they are speculator/collectors themselves and can't separate the two??
I think that all mythic cards should be ruled as one of cards. sure it might change the pricing of such rares, but it would make a more balanced game in the end. It would also be a simple rule to understand. mythic's = one of. They could even make more powerful mythic's knowing that they are going to be automatically restricted. having four of's with mythic cards kind of hurts the flavor for me. just my opinion.
what else to you want them to do? just give you free cards? they reprinted the duals so that there basically worthless, and its still almost 100-300 dollars cheaper per deck on average then paper legacy.
jeez.
I think it will have a pretty big impact on storm based combos as well. Not to mention that it can counter that turn 1 vial or top.
I'm not sure this is the best way to look at it, but if they are using misstep to counter my stifle, then I feel like I've already gained in that aspect. Sure, I lose a little tempo advantage, which is obv important, but now they get rid of a counter and I can feel more confidant swording their dude if I'm splashing white or playing New Horizons.
Like I said, it's tough knowing exactly how the meta will react to the card, but one thing is for sure, things are gonna change.
I'm not saying they won't, but Stifle is based on tempo (Not counting combo stifle-naught decks) and previously people were forced to either play around stifle or wasteland, but not both. Now they can actually play around both with a misstep in hand.
I believe it will have a slow-down effect on legacy, since on the draw you can now Misstep into Spell-Snare. This is pretty bad for most tempo based aggro decks (Not Merfolk) but pretty great for most disruptive decks, like Team America or NO Bant. Who knows, maybe 2cc T1 plays will be the rage, so Mox Diamond and City of Traitors/Tomb decks take over? Just curious since I don't get to play a lot of legacy due to MTGO having such bad legacy support.
Misstep will def change the face of legacy, not sure if it will keep people from playing stifle based decks, but its quite possible that stifle based decks play misstep as well.
It's gonna get interesting.
First, nothing in any format but vintage is even capable of being restricted, it just doesn't exist as a reasonable possibility, they either ban or let you play 4. It isn't a hard rule written anywhere, but restricted lists were causing problems due to player confusion, so they got rid of it except where necessary, vintage.
If you want to talk about cards being banned, you might want to stick with the format in which they were banned. Sword of the meek was unplayable in standard, it just so happens it was a combo with a card printed several blocks after rotation. This actually happens in extended a lot, I don't think even Necropotence got banned in standard, although standard was far different. Affinity.dec or Skullclamp are cards more recently banned from standard.
Mythics aren't the problem, they do not significantly change the cost of most decks, they just change how much certain cards in each deck cost. People were complaining about Baneslayer being too powerful when it was 50, same with Elspeth, and then they were reprinted and people started playing cards that beat them and they weren't as good. Jace just happens to be from a middle set that was drafted less due to ROE being incompatible with Zendikar and Worldwake. There are less copies and he is heavily played, so he costs a lot. Bceause of the demand for Jace, so many cards are cheaper, like Elspeth, Venser, Koth, Tezzeret, Lotus Cobra, etc, and all rares have been cheaper since Mythics made the scene.
Finally, the analysis of Jace is way off. +2 is Card Selection, not advantage. 0- Is card advantage and selection. -1 is usually referred to as tempo, there is no such thing as "physical card advantage". -12 Does basically win you the game, although again, it isn't really "card advantage" unless they had a hand full of spells, in which case they probably could have stopped you from ticking up Jace for 5 turns.
Card advantage is mostly a limited concept anyway, constructed decks don't care about how many cards you have, because the strength of cards in constructed is so high, one or two cards can easily win you the game. That's why Preordain sees play in all formats (Card Selection) and Foresee, which is card selection AND advantage, sees play only in limited.
Any worries about the viability of stifle based decks once mental misstep is playable?
Interesting deck, but mind sludge seems a little out of place, it is one of those extremely powerful cards that are highly situational. Cards that don't impact the board that cost more than one or two are most of the time not maindeck material, I feel the same way about Mimic Vat. Also hurting Mind Sludge is the amount of spell pierces being played, it is absolutely crushing tempo wise to have a spell like that pierced. You can always run more discard to avoid this, but those effects are so bad as the game goes long, and against aggressive decks, I can't say I recommend it.
Gatekeeper of Malakir and Bloodhusk Ritualist allow you to play dual lands and are not dead draws once your opponent has no cards in hand.
There is also very little reason to run 2 colors unless they are allied, the mana is so bad for enemy colors you can splash a third color at almost no cost to the mana base other than fewer basics (making mind sludge worse however). Other than the highly played RUG, the BUG base is very strong, as is "Jund" and while lotus cobra isn't required, it is excellent when paired with black due to inquisition -> cobra. I believe there was a successful jund build recently running Lotus Cobra, Abyssal Persecutor, Garruk, Liliana, Sarkhan and Chandra.
I'm personally not as big a fan of Sylvan Ranger, I think these decks tend to want Phyrexian Rager more, but there is probably room for both. I think the format is too fast and there is too much removal to make mimic vat playable, but feel free to prove me wrong.
http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/ask/p/513,525,871
They changed the report a bug feature to something a bit more complex and annoying but that should be where you go to report it. (I can't believe they cornered that domain name btw.)
What's really funny is when youve said that in our games about Mind's Eye its already done its job. :p Both games.
"The one fact that remains and has yet to be disputed/discredited is simply this: If there were more of these cards in the market place they would be cheaper, which in turn would allow more players to own them, which in turn would cause more events to fire..."
Which in turn would cause more demand for the cards, which in turn would increase the price of the card again, along with every other card needed for the same deck that wasn't reprinted. Which in turn doesn't solve the problem.
pyretic ritual is cheaper than the desperate one, and functions the same in this deck(i don't like relying on two of the same card, but you make a valid point about arcane...i will search for other arcanes that might take the place of other spells here) and the promo remand is cheaper than the rav one... you know me, always complaining about card prices:)