Cranial Extraction was a very popular card when it was in Std back in 2006/2007 there is no reason why it wont be used in the current Std its a great way to remove planeswalkers from decks.
On the Myr side its not just the art I don't like why on earth would Myr form up into a ball to attack. It just doesn't fit in with what we have seen in the past on Mirrodin.
I will also agree with you that the set isn't great, to be honest I was disappointed with it as well but it seems to be aimed more at the casual crowd this time round which is fine for the formats I play.
If we manage to get all the possible good combos and synergies and cards banned due to values going up.. no you know its just not going to happen lol.
I see the line of thinking you're using here but its just not gonna happen unless MTGO becomes 90% Heirloom players and 10% other format players to allow enough demand to spread around lol.
I think that there is a problem with this format. It's not unconquerable, but still exists: if the format does drive something up, past, say, .2, for a rare. That card is pretty much banned forever, barring a 2nd printing. Do you know how little it takes to keep a price where it is at? As long as there is any sort of demand, it will hold steady. Eventually you have a weaker and more boring format than pauper.
hmm my opinion on elves and goblins(i rarely get asked my opinion so i will oblige)
In all honestly I dont mind elves, goblins, merfolk, etc. There are hundreds of each of these creatures in the game. What I do dislike are people running the legacy/classic netdecks of these tribes. I remember I ran a mostly black goblin deck one week and no one cared. Also white elves? thats pretty freaking cool. You can even have mostly green merfolk or black merfolk nowadays. So the tribes are fine. It is the creativity that can sometimes be lacking.
Elves and Goblins also give players the more deckbuilding options than other tribes. Goblins have a mono-black and mono-green lord if you wanted to skip out on red goblins entirely. You could also play black and white elves relatively easily. There are more off-color options for elves and goblins than there are tribe-members for many other tribes.
Whenever we start to build 2+ color decks, it becomes difficult to make them under $25 without serious budget considerations.
Cranial Extraction is not seen in "other formats" what makes you think Memoriocide will be?
Your complaints about Myr seem petty. I get that you don't like the art, but they are no more or less horrendous in terms of design than what we see in each set. The Yug-i-oh reference particularly is just hyperbole. Mentioning that game is like the mtgo's equivalent of mentioning hitler. Doesn't prove your point, and just makes a sensationalist association. Call it bad art that someone's kid sister might like, but this comparison is unnecessary, and implies things about gameplay that are just untrue.
Other cards you seem to rate I find interesting, 6 mana for a combat trick is not really a combat trick, it is a last ditch effort to not be dead already. And as above, a 5 cmc cost for a 4/4 or 5/5 - in most decks that play lots of artefacts... 5 is too much for the finisher. Why would the golem be played ahead of Ravager? Which is presently not played.
I think the set is janky and over costed for the spells. I am hoping there are overpowered cards in it that force their way into legacy, but I doubt it. (Rachet Bomb, Wurmcoil engine, Necrotic Ooze likely to find their way into existing or adapted decks.) Cas Cas and non straight constructed might see some love, but most of the rest is meh.
This is a really hard format to not break. It's really that simple. My first and only foray into Tribal Wars was to build a WG troll deck and play with it in cas/cas. The first game I played against someone playing Affinity (a.k.a. Myr). Now, personally I have no problem playing at a competitive or casual level, but what's important is to set a level. You can't have it both ways. Unfortunately, Tribal Wars as a format tends to fall into the casual side of things, making broken Spikesque decks obnoxious.
The bottom line in any format is that if it's dominated by particular deck types and relatively stagnant, it's not going to attract and maintain a following. Budget is a secondary concern to a healthy format.
That is true, also both elves decks I faced were not typical combo elves. One was some big fatties come to rock the house* deck (*Featuring one of my favorite new cards: Pelakka Wurm) and the other was an all white elves deck using white strategies to hose the opposition.
I think the goblin deck was more mainstream but still not what I have seen in the past in terms of easy.dec. I'd say they were fairer than many in the past have been.
Also Xaos, Merfolk.dec is quite popular and has done well in past events even against good draws.
Just a heads up for everyone -- I submitted the Infect articles earlier today and they will be just as ugly as these =P. I'll see if I have time to mess around with image headers for the next one.
Personally I would. I don't care that much about breaking up text with images and large headers. The only thing that irritates me are the images and card links not working, but like I said I really don't have time to do the images and links manually and I'd rather provide timely but ugly content than pretty but late analysis.
goblins and elves are the decks that people turn to because their super easy netdecks. There's very few tribes that couldn't be built in the $25 range.
I really really disagree with your statement about magic. I have never beaten Jon Finkel. And only won one match vs Zvi because he was unfamiliar with the format and the kind of wacked out jank to expect (a Reject Rares Draft which I won after 6 rounds.) I could probably beat Kasperov on a good day if he ceded me a rook and queen. My point is magic definitely has tiers of skill level where you will never beat your opponents even if they are totally hosed by their draw.
Same as in chess. But if we are talking within a few ratings levels (1600-1900 for chess was my example) and talking about veteran players (not provisionally rated as a noob in other words) there will be variance based on the factors I mentioned. Sure landhose, topdecks/hands from god etc play a part but generally speaking any win you or I get against a 2k+ player is a blue moon, and it is doubtful that the blue moon will take place twice in one match. The same goes for us playing vs beginners/scrubs (under 1400 rated).
The gaps might seem larger in magic because you hear about Brian Kibler losing FNM to some random amateur but those are not the same thing as Mr Kibler losing in a GP or PT. Mr Kibler obviously puts on a professional game face for pro events and has fun at fun events which may lead to him losing games here and there. The fact is this happens so seldom that when it does it is newsworthy.
On the same token I have seen masters upset grandmasters in chess and I have myself drawn or won lost games against far better players. Just a matter of some variances getting in the way.
Indeed magic combines chess and poker skills and the better you are at both the better you SHOULD be at magic. This isn't guaranteed though because of the nature of our game. It is more than both the other games combined.
great article to be sure. I'm happy you allude to or directly state a lot of what my thoughts are about this set: that Wizards just got a ton of things wrong here.
The Mythics: too many that are too good with too few good rares,
Infect: Not a theme that seems possible to build a deck around, as finishers when its on a big guy sure but otherwise it's pretty meh, especially when you consider how good walkers are now and youre paying twice as much for half the dmg to the walker.
Myr: ya cartooney is not an area we want to explore with mtg. Mtg holds the top ccg spot for a good reason: it appeals to adults, leave the kiddy themes in the kiddy games.
Good job, but you won by getting most of the best red cards in packs that were deep in red. If one more red drafter had been drafting, I think you were screwed.
Completely agree. Paper pre-release events were weeks ago and we're still weeks away from MTGO's release, so I kind of get tired and frustrated with all the Scars reviews when I can't even play with them. By the time the set actually goes live, I don't think I'll be as excited. =(
Well, he was in a real though spot and the only trick that comes to mind for his opponent is a condemn so there was no real reason to keep something back, especially since he would have blocked the gladiator with the child of night regaining the 2 life points he lost to the pings.
You could ping the child of night but at this point is better to outright ping the specter and deal lethal.
The cheap and easy way to do Headers is just to cut and paste Magic images into MS Paint, crop them, and then add text over the top of them.
Then you need to save the image and upload it into the editor.
If you want to go a little further than that you can play with adding shapes in MS Word or Excel and using your Magic artwork as the background of those shapes.
Seems like you had a good opportunity to splash a few black recursion cards to make your titans that much more unstoppable if you have just given up on white earlier.
The thing is goblins and elf decks are decks that players look to when they're looking for budget options. Look at all four decks that won prizes this week. Each one is a budget deck in the $15-$25 range.
There is a difference between classic cut-throat tournament calibur goblin decks and a budget tribal goblin deck.
If you start banning tribes like goblins you're going to alienate new players and budget players and people are going to wonder if their tribe is going to be the next on the chopping block.
Headers: The editor is basically a crappy form of Word, but you can still work with it a little. Just come up with some snappy header (like "Red: Horrible but I still play it sometimes" or something), bold it, underline it and center it, then make it xx-large. There you go, readable header.
Set reviews are tough to write about here, as the links won't work for at least a week or more after the set comes out online. I end up writing my review as the spoilers come out, because I know that I am going to have to manually insert the links most of the time. It is really a pain.
As for the formatting, you have the ability to preview the way the article is going to be seen before it is submitted. So the question is, would you be willing to read the article if it looked like this? That's really up to you.
I was thinking of my Heirloom merfolk deck but then I'm thinking either it would be A) too good a tribe andget me hated on or B) really bad in a tribal environment.
Here's an entry from the "Notes" column of one of my ROE drafts:
"74242232 was quite a game, esp for R3G3"
I have no idea why I wrote that note, but you could go hack your file and find out for yourself.
*edit*
Ha! I actually tried it for this game, and got a "replay unavailable" error. I don't know if they clear out old game data or what, but it has been reliable for recent games when working on an article, etc.
Cranial Extraction was a very popular card when it was in Std back in 2006/2007 there is no reason why it wont be used in the current Std its a great way to remove planeswalkers from decks.
On the Myr side its not just the art I don't like why on earth would Myr form up into a ball to attack. It just doesn't fit in with what we have seen in the past on Mirrodin.
I will also agree with you that the set isn't great, to be honest I was disappointed with it as well but it seems to be aimed more at the casual crowd this time round which is fine for the formats I play.
Pretty freaking cool, but it got 2-0ed by the Goblins. It also lost to the knights deck thanks to Stillmoon Cavalier, which was awesome tech.
That's an interesting theory,
If we manage to get all the possible good combos and synergies and cards banned due to values going up.. no you know its just not going to happen lol.
I see the line of thinking you're using here but its just not gonna happen unless MTGO becomes 90% Heirloom players and 10% other format players to allow enough demand to spread around lol.
Have a good one dude =P,
X-
I think that there is a problem with this format. It's not unconquerable, but still exists: if the format does drive something up, past, say, .2, for a rare. That card is pretty much banned forever, barring a 2nd printing. Do you know how little it takes to keep a price where it is at? As long as there is any sort of demand, it will hold steady. Eventually you have a weaker and more boring format than pauper.
hmm my opinion on elves and goblins(i rarely get asked my opinion so i will oblige)
In all honestly I dont mind elves, goblins, merfolk, etc. There are hundreds of each of these creatures in the game. What I do dislike are people running the legacy/classic netdecks of these tribes. I remember I ran a mostly black goblin deck one week and no one cared. Also white elves? thats pretty freaking cool. You can even have mostly green merfolk or black merfolk nowadays. So the tribes are fine. It is the creativity that can sometimes be lacking.
Elves and Goblins also give players the more deckbuilding options than other tribes. Goblins have a mono-black and mono-green lord if you wanted to skip out on red goblins entirely. You could also play black and white elves relatively easily. There are more off-color options for elves and goblins than there are tribe-members for many other tribes.
Whenever we start to build 2+ color decks, it becomes difficult to make them under $25 without serious budget considerations.
Couple of things.
Cranial Extraction is not seen in "other formats" what makes you think Memoriocide will be?
Your complaints about Myr seem petty. I get that you don't like the art, but they are no more or less horrendous in terms of design than what we see in each set. The Yug-i-oh reference particularly is just hyperbole. Mentioning that game is like the mtgo's equivalent of mentioning hitler. Doesn't prove your point, and just makes a sensationalist association. Call it bad art that someone's kid sister might like, but this comparison is unnecessary, and implies things about gameplay that are just untrue.
Other cards you seem to rate I find interesting, 6 mana for a combat trick is not really a combat trick, it is a last ditch effort to not be dead already. And as above, a 5 cmc cost for a 4/4 or 5/5 - in most decks that play lots of artefacts... 5 is too much for the finisher. Why would the golem be played ahead of Ravager? Which is presently not played.
I think the set is janky and over costed for the spells. I am hoping there are overpowered cards in it that force their way into legacy, but I doubt it. (Rachet Bomb, Wurmcoil engine, Necrotic Ooze likely to find their way into existing or adapted decks.) Cas Cas and non straight constructed might see some love, but most of the rest is meh.
This is a really hard format to not break. It's really that simple. My first and only foray into Tribal Wars was to build a WG troll deck and play with it in cas/cas. The first game I played against someone playing Affinity (a.k.a. Myr). Now, personally I have no problem playing at a competitive or casual level, but what's important is to set a level. You can't have it both ways. Unfortunately, Tribal Wars as a format tends to fall into the casual side of things, making broken Spikesque decks obnoxious.
The bottom line in any format is that if it's dominated by particular deck types and relatively stagnant, it's not going to attract and maintain a following. Budget is a secondary concern to a healthy format.
That is true, also both elves decks I faced were not typical combo elves. One was some big fatties come to rock the house* deck (*Featuring one of my favorite new cards: Pelakka Wurm) and the other was an all white elves deck using white strategies to hose the opposition.
I think the goblin deck was more mainstream but still not what I have seen in the past in terms of easy.dec. I'd say they were fairer than many in the past have been.
Also Xaos, Merfolk.dec is quite popular and has done well in past events even against good draws.
Just a heads up for everyone -- I submitted the Infect articles earlier today and they will be just as ugly as these =P. I'll see if I have time to mess around with image headers for the next one.
Personally I would. I don't care that much about breaking up text with images and large headers. The only thing that irritates me are the images and card links not working, but like I said I really don't have time to do the images and links manually and I'd rather provide timely but ugly content than pretty but late analysis.
goblins and elves are the decks that people turn to because their super easy netdecks. There's very few tribes that couldn't be built in the $25 range.
I really really disagree with your statement about magic. I have never beaten Jon Finkel. And only won one match vs Zvi because he was unfamiliar with the format and the kind of wacked out jank to expect (a Reject Rares Draft which I won after 6 rounds.) I could probably beat Kasperov on a good day if he ceded me a rook and queen. My point is magic definitely has tiers of skill level where you will never beat your opponents even if they are totally hosed by their draw.
Same as in chess. But if we are talking within a few ratings levels (1600-1900 for chess was my example) and talking about veteran players (not provisionally rated as a noob in other words) there will be variance based on the factors I mentioned. Sure landhose, topdecks/hands from god etc play a part but generally speaking any win you or I get against a 2k+ player is a blue moon, and it is doubtful that the blue moon will take place twice in one match. The same goes for us playing vs beginners/scrubs (under 1400 rated).
The gaps might seem larger in magic because you hear about Brian Kibler losing FNM to some random amateur but those are not the same thing as Mr Kibler losing in a GP or PT. Mr Kibler obviously puts on a professional game face for pro events and has fun at fun events which may lead to him losing games here and there. The fact is this happens so seldom that when it does it is newsworthy.
On the same token I have seen masters upset grandmasters in chess and I have myself drawn or won lost games against far better players. Just a matter of some variances getting in the way.
Indeed magic combines chess and poker skills and the better you are at both the better you SHOULD be at magic. This isn't guaranteed though because of the nature of our game. It is more than both the other games combined.
Ah ok I get it now... (slow).
Hmmmm I had no idea that was you. Well done on the podcast. You did a fine job.
Flippers,
great article to be sure. I'm happy you allude to or directly state a lot of what my thoughts are about this set: that Wizards just got a ton of things wrong here.
The Mythics: too many that are too good with too few good rares,
Infect: Not a theme that seems possible to build a deck around, as finishers when its on a big guy sure but otherwise it's pretty meh, especially when you consider how good walkers are now and youre paying twice as much for half the dmg to the walker.
Myr: ya cartooney is not an area we want to explore with mtg. Mtg holds the top ccg spot for a good reason: it appeals to adults, leave the kiddy themes in the kiddy games.
X-
Good job, but you won by getting most of the best red cards in packs that were deep in red. If one more red drafter had been drafting, I think you were screwed.
Completely agree. Paper pre-release events were weeks ago and we're still weeks away from MTGO's release, so I kind of get tired and frustrated with all the Scars reviews when I can't even play with them. By the time the set actually goes live, I don't think I'll be as excited. =(
This article, by the way, looks beautiful. =)
Well, he was in a real though spot and the only trick that comes to mind for his opponent is a condemn so there was no real reason to keep something back, especially since he would have blocked the gladiator with the child of night regaining the 2 life points he lost to the pings.
You could ping the child of night but at this point is better to outright ping the specter and deal lethal.
The cheap and easy way to do Headers is just to cut and paste Magic images into MS Paint, crop them, and then add text over the top of them.
Then you need to save the image and upload it into the editor.
If you want to go a little further than that you can play with adding shapes in MS Word or Excel and using your Magic artwork as the background of those shapes.
Seems like you had a good opportunity to splash a few black recursion cards to make your titans that much more unstoppable if you have just given up on white earlier.
X-
The thing is goblins and elf decks are decks that players look to when they're looking for budget options. Look at all four decks that won prizes this week. Each one is a budget deck in the $15-$25 range.
There is a difference between classic cut-throat tournament calibur goblin decks and a budget tribal goblin deck.
If you start banning tribes like goblins you're going to alienate new players and budget players and people are going to wonder if their tribe is going to be the next on the chopping block.
Headers: The editor is basically a crappy form of Word, but you can still work with it a little. Just come up with some snappy header (like "Red: Horrible but I still play it sometimes" or something), bold it, underline it and center it, then make it xx-large. There you go, readable header.
Set reviews are tough to write about here, as the links won't work for at least a week or more after the set comes out online. I end up writing my review as the spoilers come out, because I know that I am going to have to manually insert the links most of the time. It is really a pain.
As for the formatting, you have the ability to preview the way the article is going to be seen before it is submitted. So the question is, would you be willing to read the article if it looked like this? That's really up to you.
Hey guys,
I was thinking of my Heirloom merfolk deck but then I'm thinking either it would be A) too good a tribe andget me hated on or B) really bad in a tribal environment.
X-
Here's an entry from the "Notes" column of one of my ROE drafts:
"74242232 was quite a game, esp for R3G3"
I have no idea why I wrote that note, but you could go hack your file and find out for yourself.
*edit*
Ha! I actually tried it for this game, and got a "replay unavailable" error. I don't know if they clear out old game data or what, but it has been reliable for recent games when working on an article, etc.