I see mythics as the biggest problem in mtg right now. Not only do the prices of mythics discourage new players from starting, they push players out of the game too. Mythics provide zero benefit to players, and in the long run are going to be severely hurting wotc.
I'd like to have a more robust site of course at some point and when time allows it's one of many things I'd like to ensure happens(not like anyone needs my permission to make one... lol, Heirloom belongs to us everyone after all),
There is the link hub on an Heirloom blog atm though which has all the links posted so that does serve the utility of an easy location where all the links are.
Of course there's another element to online price problems. Offline probably the majority of players have access to getting packs at 25-50% off of retail, with plenty having access to the full 50%, so in the paper market the real price of a pack is more like $2 and not $4. (unless things have changed recently I haven't bought paper packs for a few years but from online sale prices for boxes this seems about right still) Even if they just cut back to $3 that would have a huge impact on the price of cards (and on collections for sure, you'd have to do this very slowly not to own people too badly) I always thought the high online price was short sighted and kept the online community much smaller than it would have been at a pack price of $2.
Some tools to support PREs would help new players more than anything else imo. Right now Wizard's hostile stance toward them is pretty disappointing. (only player made channels being allowed to speak of them and only classifieds for bots but not PREs lol).
True, there is caution to be made when playing the Dissipation Field, however that can be said for any card when in a certain situation. The Dispation Filed possibley has more of a chance to be abused, but I wouldn't worry too much. In Commander and EDH your not going to see a whole lot of abuse out of it. If you do, well then I was wrong :)
I'll be happy to receive any donations, it's always a good reminder of how much people like the format and the events and helps incentivize continued Heirloom prosperity.
The guru lands are the ones with the different phases of the moon on them. I've always liked them myself.
I'm going to include the non-foil card donations in with the the foil choices so as long as someone doesn't take it ahead of you it's all yours.
Might as well see if you can strike lightning twice, the question is: is the rule that lighting doesn't strike in the same place twice true (ie for the same deck?) or a myth?
My favorite card draw spell in affinity control is Vedalken Archmage and plenty of zero cc artifacts heh (I wouldn't be so thrilled about shield sphere int he maindeck without him).
A word of caution about Dissipation Field, it can be a very bad double edged sword in the right (wrong?) board state because you are giving your opponents a way to abuse their ETB effects.
A friend and I like to crack 3 packs and just play a few games with decks built from that really limited card pool. So stretching for playables I threw in the Field... no reason not to I figured. Well with only that on the board on my side he played out a Necrogen Censer and then a Glint Hawk.
1. Use Censer
2. Attack with Hawk
3. Re-cast Hawk, bouncing Censer
4. Re-cast Censer
5. Use Censer
I was dead in short order. That's a pretty convoluted scenario but something simple like Goblin Ruinblaster will punish you just as quick.
Interesting article........I don't think extra incentive to beat a pro player would make me play any better or worse. Matter of fact, dare I say it might put even more pressure on a new player.
I would be just as happy if they actually gave us promo cards that were standard legal for goodness sake. Door prize type of stuff is also a decent idea.
I know, the point would be to discourage it rather than eliminate it.
Someone could open 12 accounts and try to use that to gain a free pack each month. To discourage that, this method would require them to set up 55 matches that can't be easily conceded in order to do that kind of cheat of the system.
This might not be necessary, because WotC would probably be able to spot this kind of activity and put a stop to it.
I think the "Free Roll" suggestion is the best of your ideas. As a fairly new player to the constructed scene I'm still building my deck(s), but I find the 2 man casual "Tournament Practice" queue's to be lacking in actually preparing one for a real tournament. Too many people join, then either get a lopsided win or lose and drop without allowing for sideboarding and getting a feel for playing with your deck against other archetypes. Potentially, this could be the easiest for Wizards to implement as it wouldn't be much of a departure than the 2-man casual queues.
Off the top of my head, Chaotic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Everquest, Free Realms, Stargate all had/have official online equivalents to their TCGs. Everquest you actually can get packs as loot for killing monsters :)
The biggest problem with constructed is that there is no stepping stone between casual/unrated play and constructed tournaments. Since nothing is on the line for casual/unrated games, you almost always get mismatched pairings and people who feel cheated or feel like they are wasting there time.
My solution: create ante chips.
1) 5 ante chips are awarded to each active player at the beginning of each month.
2) Ante chips can't be traded. They can only be won or lost in ante games. (Conceding a game/match is disabled for ante games as a way to discourage players from trying to trade ante chips.)
3) Ante games can be any constructed format you want. The winner of a match wins an ante chip from the loser.
4) 60 ante chips can be redeemed for a booster pack. (Using a similar method to set redemption)
This would essentially create a free League for everyone on Magic Online to play in. This would also separate the players who want to play more spikey games from the players who want to play more casual games.
WotC can then run free-to-enter tournaments that award ante chips without worrying too much about giving away too much for a free-to-enter tournament.
Zim: Used to look forward to updating elves but with so many people at it now, it would be better for me to observe first. =x
Arch: If uw is that good vs survival, I wanna play UW too. My games are starting to degenerate into "who gets survival out first = win".
I'll be looking at the more "SOM" cards in part b so look forward to it.
The reason commanders can not be permenantly removed has to do with thier caommander replacement effect.
Whenever a commander would be removed from game for any reason, or put into the graveyard, you get the option of a replacement effect to put it into the command zone. So if Path to Exile would exile it, you get the option to exile the creature as intended, or put into your command zone. But really, who is going to intentionaly exilt thier creature.
i want that guru land if its the on with he eye in it looks like i have to try hard this time, sigh. guess i might have to lose some sleep and make the event so noone steals it away imean not that i will win or anything but i might getit as a dor prize who knows. but you never know i could get lucky twice
Played a few games last night with my Affinity Control list vs the lovely Redman's Rift Cycle list. Very close match up it would appear but I have a lot of dead cards against him such as Shield Sphere and Cancel and we were playing without sideboards. Also played a few games in the Casual room. I was shocked at what some people consider to be a 'Casual' deck. Tezzeret / Academy Ruins / Tolerian Academy / recursion good stuff.dec? Really? Very frustrating.
Some interesting deck building choices - Courier's Capsule vs Compulsive Research being one of the key ones. Obviously Research is the 'better' card but Capsule is so much more synergistic in the deck.
Stop. Hammer time.
Sorry, had to do it... XD
I see mythics as the biggest problem in mtg right now. Not only do the prices of mythics discourage new players from starting, they push players out of the game too. Mythics provide zero benefit to players, and in the long run are going to be severely hurting wotc.
Negative
I'd like to have a more robust site of course at some point and when time allows it's one of many things I'd like to ensure happens(not like anyone needs my permission to make one... lol, Heirloom belongs to us everyone after all),
There is the link hub on an Heirloom blog atm though which has all the links posted so that does serve the utility of an easy location where all the links are.
http://xaoslegend.blogspot.com/2010/09/heirloom-links.html
X-
A lot of good ideas,
my favorite idea is eliminating mythics.
Of course there's another element to online price problems. Offline probably the majority of players have access to getting packs at 25-50% off of retail, with plenty having access to the full 50%, so in the paper market the real price of a pack is more like $2 and not $4. (unless things have changed recently I haven't bought paper packs for a few years but from online sale prices for boxes this seems about right still) Even if they just cut back to $3 that would have a huge impact on the price of cards (and on collections for sure, you'd have to do this very slowly not to own people too badly) I always thought the high online price was short sighted and kept the online community much smaller than it would have been at a pack price of $2.
Some tools to support PREs would help new players more than anything else imo. Right now Wizard's hostile stance toward them is pretty disappointing. (only player made channels being allowed to speak of them and only classifieds for bots but not PREs lol).
X-
We should talk about putting up an official format site so that there is a place people can go to get every pertinent link and application.
Is koth really married to Elspeth? Is it part of the actual story line?
True, there is caution to be made when playing the Dissipation Field, however that can be said for any card when in a certain situation. The Dispation Filed possibley has more of a chance to be abused, but I wouldn't worry too much. In Commander and EDH your not going to see a whole lot of abuse out of it. If you do, well then I was wrong :)
I'll be happy to receive any donations, it's always a good reminder of how much people like the format and the events and helps incentivize continued Heirloom prosperity.
The guru lands are the ones with the different phases of the moon on them. I've always liked them myself.
I'm going to include the non-foil card donations in with the the foil choices so as long as someone doesn't take it ahead of you it's all yours.
Might as well see if you can strike lightning twice, the question is: is the rule that lighting doesn't strike in the same place twice true (ie for the same deck?) or a myth?
X-
My favorite card draw spell in affinity control is Vedalken Archmage and plenty of zero cc artifacts heh (I wouldn't be so thrilled about shield sphere int he maindeck without him).
A word of caution about Dissipation Field, it can be a very bad double edged sword in the right (wrong?) board state because you are giving your opponents a way to abuse their ETB effects.
A friend and I like to crack 3 packs and just play a few games with decks built from that really limited card pool. So stretching for playables I threw in the Field... no reason not to I figured. Well with only that on the board on my side he played out a Necrogen Censer and then a Glint Hawk.
1. Use Censer
2. Attack with Hawk
3. Re-cast Hawk, bouncing Censer
4. Re-cast Censer
5. Use Censer
I was dead in short order. That's a pretty convoluted scenario but something simple like Goblin Ruinblaster will punish you just as quick.
Interesting article........I don't think extra incentive to beat a pro player would make me play any better or worse. Matter of fact, dare I say it might put even more pressure on a new player.
I would be just as happy if they actually gave us promo cards that were standard legal for goodness sake. Door prize type of stuff is also a decent idea.
I understand the rule, I don't understand the logic behind it.
I know, the point would be to discourage it rather than eliminate it.
Someone could open 12 accounts and try to use that to gain a free pack each month. To discourage that, this method would require them to set up 55 matches that can't be easily conceded in order to do that kind of cheat of the system.
This might not be necessary, because WotC would probably be able to spot this kind of activity and put a stop to it.
I think the "Free Roll" suggestion is the best of your ideas. As a fairly new player to the constructed scene I'm still building my deck(s), but I find the 2 man casual "Tournament Practice" queue's to be lacking in actually preparing one for a real tournament. Too many people join, then either get a lopsided win or lose and drop without allowing for sideboarding and getting a feel for playing with your deck against other archetypes. Potentially, this could be the easiest for Wizards to implement as it wouldn't be much of a departure than the 2-man casual queues.
kind of a cool idea, but even without conceding people can throw games
Sounds like Std Singleton... I tried grix last time and faced it in every round
Off the top of my head, Chaotic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Everquest, Free Realms, Stargate all had/have official online equivalents to their TCGs. Everquest you actually can get packs as loot for killing monsters :)
The biggest problem with constructed is that there is no stepping stone between casual/unrated play and constructed tournaments. Since nothing is on the line for casual/unrated games, you almost always get mismatched pairings and people who feel cheated or feel like they are wasting there time.
My solution: create ante chips.
1) 5 ante chips are awarded to each active player at the beginning of each month.
2) Ante chips can't be traded. They can only be won or lost in ante games. (Conceding a game/match is disabled for ante games as a way to discourage players from trying to trade ante chips.)
3) Ante games can be any constructed format you want. The winner of a match wins an ante chip from the loser.
4) 60 ante chips can be redeemed for a booster pack. (Using a similar method to set redemption)
This would essentially create a free League for everyone on Magic Online to play in. This would also separate the players who want to play more spikey games from the players who want to play more casual games.
WotC can then run free-to-enter tournaments that award ante chips without worrying too much about giving away too much for a free-to-enter tournament.
thanks all for the comments. =)
Zim: Used to look forward to updating elves but with so many people at it now, it would be better for me to observe first. =x
Arch: If uw is that good vs survival, I wanna play UW too. My games are starting to degenerate into "who gets survival out first = win".
I'll be looking at the more "SOM" cards in part b so look forward to it.
The reason commanders can not be permenantly removed has to do with thier caommander replacement effect.
Whenever a commander would be removed from game for any reason, or put into the graveyard, you get the option of a replacement effect to put it into the command zone. So if Path to Exile would exile it, you get the option to exile the creature as intended, or put into your command zone. But really, who is going to intentionaly exilt thier creature.
it was just a casual deck and ya never know until you try, it was fun, but of course it wasn't a true win con
i want that guru land if its the on with he eye in it looks like i have to try hard this time, sigh. guess i might have to lose some sleep and make the event so noone steals it away imean not that i will win or anything but i might getit as a dor prize who knows. but you never know i could get lucky twice
oh yea and i should be making a donation of somehtin this weekend.
Played a few games last night with my Affinity Control list vs the lovely Redman's Rift Cycle list. Very close match up it would appear but I have a lot of dead cards against him such as Shield Sphere and Cancel and we were playing without sideboards. Also played a few games in the Casual room. I was shocked at what some people consider to be a 'Casual' deck. Tezzeret / Academy Ruins / Tolerian Academy / recursion good stuff.dec? Really? Very frustrating.
Some interesting deck building choices - Courier's Capsule vs Compulsive Research being one of the key ones. Obviously Research is the 'better' card but Capsule is so much more synergistic in the deck.