You play casual chess against the hustlers in Union Square on 14th street in NYC?
You should come down to Thompkins Square Park (off Ave A and 7th) where most of the players there are friendly not money hustlers. Lots of fun. Of course not so much of that happening in the colder months.
I admit my eyes straight-up started read straight up left to right. Which, now that I think of it, might not be the right wording for me to use.
Anyway, I thought you'd made a mistake in describing things above, but when I quickly saw that numbers I thought I was reading in the graph and those in the example were reversed, by error was obvious. Re-reading the paragraph above the graph after this first mistake was all I needed to have no further problems. Perhaps doing things by rows would be better because it's a bit more natural, but I'd say it works either way.
The only graphs or tables I have trouble reading fully are the pie charts just because of the number of slices and some of the colors will necessarily be very similar. But then, I consider the pie-chart an at-a-glance visual tool. And in the visual department, you're the king! After all the number crunching, you still presents artist spotlights. That and your work on the banners shows a deep respect for the part of the game that makes it magic.
So, I have to disagree with your last comment: I believe you were quite successful. And I just gotta say thanks for doing stuff of this caliber here to show just how good you can get stuff. I've been starting Standard articles here and in the forums on PDCMagic and Mike, you series is a great model to follow: If you want to go all out, cover a whole format toe to toe, then this is how it's done, top to bottom. Graphs, charts, tables, and all.
I give this a rating of five....what are these? Excellent...on PureMTGO, you get to play with FIVE Lightning Bolts! When do you sling all five Bolts? Only against the very best. So here: you take 15 :-) Keep up the good work!
I guarantee that no one’s happy to be sitting across from your LD deck. And it’s a misrepresentation of casual players to describe them as wanting to play “unhindered”.
Far as I can tell the only obtainable common ground is this: Tell me what you find is fun, and I'll tell you what I find is fun. If we both find the same things fun, we will play well together. If we don't then likely only one of us will have fun. Luckily, the tools exists for us to do just that. You can't force people to use them, but if you make the attempt at least you've done your part. If more people did just their part you wouldn't have much of a problem getting matches you enjoyed. Labeling specific cards as unfun and trying to build a consensus against them is a wasted effort. You won't find enough people to agree with you. My solution is this, do your part to communicate and if you find someone who has done their part to communicate you will have a more positive interaction. There is a presence of negativity in this article, and I don't think its fair to you that you should have to feel like you need to punish other players for their deck choices. That sounds like you have a surplus of unfun interactions under your belt, and that stinks.
Although I disagree with some of your points, I like your attempt at the issue and have rated this a 5. It provides a springboard for discussion, and I respect that. I would like to see more like this.
No where is that even implied. I mean, check out my screen shots from the top. Number one: hand full of spells. Two: hand full of spells. Four: only one creature in the deck. Five: only one creature, and it’s used for a spell effect.
As someone commented above, this is a game with winners and losers. Is there such a thing as "casual chess"? Is there such a thing as "casual football"? If you aren't playing to win then don't be upset when you lose. If you feel your deck is outmatched because you have jank and the opponent is pulling out the $10 rares, then concede. If you want to ensure that the decks are close to evenly matched by the caliber of cards then limit the game types to reduce the possible card pool of deck choices. Playing a Classic game means anything goes, and you have no idea what cards are waiting to smash you into oblivion. Yup, Heirloom is sounding better and better.
Sounds like the only magic you want to play is all players cast creatures, attack/block...rinse and repeat. Boring. There are thousands of cards in magic and you want to limit it to lands and creatures. I'm looking more and more at Heirloom. Its intended to get rid of the nuisance cards like you described, but still leaves options open for creative decks.
If your the only green player at the table, then its a pretty good reason to be in the color. If no one else is touching it you have a decent chance of being passed bombs late in the draft. Of all the possible color combinations for green I think I like U/G the best, blue can do some good things with giant growth. I'm inclined to agree with you about red, and red is also hurt by the fact that eveyone steals their best spells(bolt, fireball.)
Of course, you know your local meta though. It is possible of course to get a feel for the online meta, although it is a lot more difficult. People tend to take pros words as gospel, and you can get a good feel for what people are going to try to do by watching draft vids the pros put out. The pros say U/W skies wins, so everyone tries to draft U/W skies and the lone suicide B/R aggro wins instead. It is pretty tough to nail down though, and I take what my gut says about the online limited meta with a grain of salt.
Don't like land destruction:
Sacred Ground, Llanowar Elves, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Darksteel Citadel, Land Tax, Kodama's Reach, Dark Ritual, Life From the Loam, Cartographer, Groundskeeper, Evolution Charm, Grim Discovery, Harvest Wurm, Nature's Spiral, the 10 fetch lands, Flagstones of Trokair, Lotus Bloom, Paradise Mantle, Petrified Field, Tolaria West, Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, Teferi's Response, Rite of Flame, Sol Ring, Azorius Signet, Braid of Fire
Don't like discard:
Leyline of Sanctity, Psychic Purge, Guerrilla Tactics, Mangara's Blessing, Metrognome, Obstinate Baloth, Pure Intentions, Quagnoth, Sand Golem, Ivory Mask, True Believer, Feldon's Cane, Unearth, Eternal Witness, Reassembling Skeleton, Life & Death, Animate Dead, Profane Command, Life From the Loam, Auriok Salvagers, Dread Return, Stitch Together, Squee Goblin Nabob, Bloodghast, Grim Discovery, Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm, Call of the Herd, Hellspark Elemental, Deep Analysis, Reckless Wurm, Obsessive Search, Call to the Netherworld, Deflection, Divert, Imp's Mischief, Rebound, Ricochet Trap, Shunt, Swerve, Willbender
Don't Like counterspells:
Autumn's Veil, Banefire, Blurred Mongoose, Boseiju Who Shelters All, Combust, Bound & Determined, Gaea's Herald, Great Sable Stag, Insist, Leyline of Lifeforce, Overmaster, Scragnoth, Vexing Beetle, Vexing Shusher, Silence, Orim's Chant, Mishra's Factory, Mutavault, Blinkmoth Nexus, Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit, Dread Statuary, Forbidding Watchtower, Ghitu Encampment, Lavaclaw Reaches, Nantuko Monestary, Raging Ravine, Spawning Pool, Stirring Wildwood, Treetop Village, Aether Vial, Demonfire, Summoning Trap
I've found that Magic is more "fun" for me when I figure out the weaknesses in my deck and then re-work it to be able to deal with those threats.
Windcoarse, I agree with you that P1P1 is defensible. I would take Baloth, but I don't think that it is a runaway.
In terms of colors over all, I personally think red is quite close to green in terms of card quality (meaning I think black, white, and blue all have better quality cards overall than either red or green). But I continually find myself surprised at the cards I can get late when I go green. Last week at FNM I got 3 Sylvan Rangers, 4 Giant Spiders, 2 Awakener Druids, an Acidic Slime, etc. I took the Druid around pick 9 of a pack. I got a Spider around pick 12 or 13. I would never play mono-green even with enough playables, because the color doesn't offer many removal spells, draw spells, or tricks, but pairing green with white, or black, or blue has been really good for me. Of course if there actually are other people drafting it at your table, that will take away many of the late pick steals.
Lots of people here seem to think the Baloth should be the first pick. Green is horrible, easily the worst color. I don't pick up green for anything less than a windmill slam bomb, I avoid it. In my experience green isn't worth trying to pull together without the bombs. Opening decent green usually just means to me I can stick someone to my left in a color I won't be drafting if they don't hate the color. If it was an overwhelming stampede or titan that would be a different story. Baloth might be the best critter in this pack, but he is in the worst color. I'd rather be able to play the griffin than the baloth. It's way too early for sentinel, and white is a dominant color in the format. P1P1 is defensible, in my opinion.
I wonder... One of the things that fascinates me about Magic is how they keep a lot of balls juggling in the air. They have a lot of different people to please and they do seem receptive to feedback. And say what we want about their drive for profits, they do seem quite willing to fix mistakes (skullclamp being banned/restricted etc,) I can see them looking at this issue a year from now and saying "Maybe 1 mythic every 4 packs works a little better..eh?"
What's wrong with wanting to play to win? This is a competitive game, so competitive people will play. Spike's are a demographic Wizards aims at when developing cards, so I think they have just as much a responsibility to please their Spikes as they do their Timmys and Johnnys. If being able to attempt to play to win is no longer an option for a competitive player because of changes to the cost of the game then they are not going to be as happy as they were, thats a bad thing as it alienates a portion of the player base. Expecting a Spike to become a Timmy or Johnny because he now has no other choice is silly. Would it be reasonable for me to expect Timmy or Johnny to have to become a Spike? No.
I won't address the rest, but I think your second idea is terrible. Sideboards are what casual needs more than anything else in my mind. By playing best 2/3 I don't have to lose to someone playing a deck that doesn't interact in typical ways. Playing an enchantment only deck is in no way unfair or unfun or whatever you want to call it, but by playing only one game against it I'm basically being forced to auto lose a game because I only have ~4 answers to my opponent's 40 cards. This goes the same for any deck that doesn't interact in conventional ways (I just picked enchantments because I seem to see that more than milling, burn, combo, etc.)
I'll admit to being a bit upset when I played a single game against a raffinity deck in the casual room. I didn't mind the loss at all or even playing against a tier 1.5 deck, but when I asked if he would be willing to play a match he said no. (Remember, just because you don't have a sideboard doesn't mean you can't play best of 3.) So I went about making the most absurd deck with 40 cards that destroyed artifacts. I played him later that night and won on the back of some terrible jank because I had 'meta-gamed' against his deck. It's a pretty bold, obnoxious, and really crappy thing to do, but apparently I was really upset (I can't imagine wasting my time doing such a thing now). It's the only time I can recall being blocked when I really felt like I deserved it.
I just thought I'd say I enjoyed your article. I feel like people are hating on it pretty hard for expressing an opinion that doesn't match their own more than any real problems with the article itself. Especially given you explained the purpose of the article and didn't try to put together the ultimate reasoning explaining why everyone thinks what they think...just your own feelings.
I'm sure everyone has their stories, but I've still got this one game burned in my brain where my opponent blocked me for playing land destruction when I cast Wrecking Ball targeting his creature.
Him: I don't play against people who play LD.
Me: I'm targeting your creature.
Him: You'd play it on my land if you had to.
BLOCK
I can't remember if I laughed when it happened or if I was just stunned, but every time I think about it now it makes me chuckle a little.
Nice draft! I would run a 17th land over the Duress, though. Pack 2, pick 2 I would have tried to stay black/blue in order to have a good chance to run the Mind Control, though normally I'd value Pacifism a lot. A black card or the Ice Cage increases the chance that Mind Control will make the deck, and it's such a bomb.
I look forward to seeing your next article, thanks for posting this one!
1) The new player room is seriously underused because it only allows STD to be played. If the new player room allowed any format, then that would help migrate a bunch of the "I'm new to this format" stuff to a more appropriate place.
2) Best 2/3 matches should obviously not be an available option in the casual room. Sideboarding is pretty much by definition not casual, and anybody who wants to play with it can (and IMO should) go to the tournament practice room.
3) "Casual" depends so much on format that you can't really universally call anything out. For example, in Pauper, LD of any kind is a casual deck; there are no competitive LD decks. And playing Goblins, a creature based aggro deck without a single LD, counterspell, or discard spell, is not casual at all.
To me, the goal is more to get rid of "tournament" decks in the casual room, not so much any particular type of resource denial. But I have to admit, I play "tournament" decks in the casual room myself when I am first learning them, trying to get a feel for the draws and work out the mana base.
Finally, there are casual decks that totally suck to play against, depending. Certain ones that don't stand a chance against tournament decks, but are still popular, and become boring, repetitious, and tedious to play against. If I get my ass beat down by something new and innovative, I'll probably be happy. If I put a beatdown on something I've played against a hundred times, I'm probably bored.
You play casual chess against the hustlers in Union Square on 14th street in NYC?
You should come down to Thompkins Square Park (off Ave A and 7th) where most of the players there are friendly not money hustlers. Lots of fun. Of course not so much of that happening in the colder months.
i dont know i have the bruises to prove flag football is not just casual...
you can play casual football but without a winner its kind of boring because there is no reason to try...
Jace killed Magic for me.
I admit my eyes straight-up started read straight up left to right. Which, now that I think of it, might not be the right wording for me to use.
Anyway, I thought you'd made a mistake in describing things above, but when I quickly saw that numbers I thought I was reading in the graph and those in the example were reversed, by error was obvious. Re-reading the paragraph above the graph after this first mistake was all I needed to have no further problems. Perhaps doing things by rows would be better because it's a bit more natural, but I'd say it works either way.
The only graphs or tables I have trouble reading fully are the pie charts just because of the number of slices and some of the colors will necessarily be very similar. But then, I consider the pie-chart an at-a-glance visual tool. And in the visual department, you're the king! After all the number crunching, you still presents artist spotlights. That and your work on the banners shows a deep respect for the part of the game that makes it magic.
So, I have to disagree with your last comment: I believe you were quite successful. And I just gotta say thanks for doing stuff of this caliber here to show just how good you can get stuff. I've been starting Standard articles here and in the forums on PDCMagic and Mike, you series is a great model to follow: If you want to go all out, cover a whole format toe to toe, then this is how it's done, top to bottom. Graphs, charts, tables, and all.
I give this a rating of five....what are these? Excellent...on PureMTGO, you get to play with FIVE Lightning Bolts! When do you sling all five Bolts? Only against the very best. So here: you take 15 :-) Keep up the good work!
I guarantee that no one’s happy to be sitting across from your LD deck. And it’s a misrepresentation of casual players to describe them as wanting to play “unhindered”.
Far as I can tell the only obtainable common ground is this: Tell me what you find is fun, and I'll tell you what I find is fun. If we both find the same things fun, we will play well together. If we don't then likely only one of us will have fun. Luckily, the tools exists for us to do just that. You can't force people to use them, but if you make the attempt at least you've done your part. If more people did just their part you wouldn't have much of a problem getting matches you enjoyed. Labeling specific cards as unfun and trying to build a consensus against them is a wasted effort. You won't find enough people to agree with you. My solution is this, do your part to communicate and if you find someone who has done their part to communicate you will have a more positive interaction. There is a presence of negativity in this article, and I don't think its fair to you that you should have to feel like you need to punish other players for their deck choices. That sounds like you have a surplus of unfun interactions under your belt, and that stinks.
Although I disagree with some of your points, I like your attempt at the issue and have rated this a 5. It provides a springboard for discussion, and I respect that. I would like to see more like this.
I play casual chess in Union Square. And ever hear of flag football?
No where is that even implied. I mean, check out my screen shots from the top. Number one: hand full of spells. Two: hand full of spells. Four: only one creature in the deck. Five: only one creature, and it’s used for a spell effect.
As someone commented above, this is a game with winners and losers. Is there such a thing as "casual chess"? Is there such a thing as "casual football"? If you aren't playing to win then don't be upset when you lose. If you feel your deck is outmatched because you have jank and the opponent is pulling out the $10 rares, then concede. If you want to ensure that the decks are close to evenly matched by the caliber of cards then limit the game types to reduce the possible card pool of deck choices. Playing a Classic game means anything goes, and you have no idea what cards are waiting to smash you into oblivion. Yup, Heirloom is sounding better and better.
Sounds like the only magic you want to play is all players cast creatures, attack/block...rinse and repeat. Boring. There are thousands of cards in magic and you want to limit it to lands and creatures. I'm looking more and more at Heirloom. Its intended to get rid of the nuisance cards like you described, but still leaves options open for creative decks.
If your the only green player at the table, then its a pretty good reason to be in the color. If no one else is touching it you have a decent chance of being passed bombs late in the draft. Of all the possible color combinations for green I think I like U/G the best, blue can do some good things with giant growth. I'm inclined to agree with you about red, and red is also hurt by the fact that eveyone steals their best spells(bolt, fireball.)
Of course, you know your local meta though. It is possible of course to get a feel for the online meta, although it is a lot more difficult. People tend to take pros words as gospel, and you can get a good feel for what people are going to try to do by watching draft vids the pros put out. The pros say U/W skies wins, so everyone tries to draft U/W skies and the lone suicide B/R aggro wins instead. It is pretty tough to nail down though, and I take what my gut says about the online limited meta with a grain of salt.
Cards that might interest you if you:
Don't like land destruction:
Sacred Ground, Llanowar Elves, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Darksteel Citadel, Land Tax, Kodama's Reach, Dark Ritual, Life From the Loam, Cartographer, Groundskeeper, Evolution Charm, Grim Discovery, Harvest Wurm, Nature's Spiral, the 10 fetch lands, Flagstones of Trokair, Lotus Bloom, Paradise Mantle, Petrified Field, Tolaria West, Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, Teferi's Response, Rite of Flame, Sol Ring, Azorius Signet, Braid of Fire
Don't like discard:
Leyline of Sanctity, Psychic Purge, Guerrilla Tactics, Mangara's Blessing, Metrognome, Obstinate Baloth, Pure Intentions, Quagnoth, Sand Golem, Ivory Mask, True Believer, Feldon's Cane, Unearth, Eternal Witness, Reassembling Skeleton, Life & Death, Animate Dead, Profane Command, Life From the Loam, Auriok Salvagers, Dread Return, Stitch Together, Squee Goblin Nabob, Bloodghast, Grim Discovery, Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm, Call of the Herd, Hellspark Elemental, Deep Analysis, Reckless Wurm, Obsessive Search, Call to the Netherworld, Deflection, Divert, Imp's Mischief, Rebound, Ricochet Trap, Shunt, Swerve, Willbender
Don't Like counterspells:
Autumn's Veil, Banefire, Blurred Mongoose, Boseiju Who Shelters All, Combust, Bound & Determined, Gaea's Herald, Great Sable Stag, Insist, Leyline of Lifeforce, Overmaster, Scragnoth, Vexing Beetle, Vexing Shusher, Silence, Orim's Chant, Mishra's Factory, Mutavault, Blinkmoth Nexus, Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit, Dread Statuary, Forbidding Watchtower, Ghitu Encampment, Lavaclaw Reaches, Nantuko Monestary, Raging Ravine, Spawning Pool, Stirring Wildwood, Treetop Village, Aether Vial, Demonfire, Summoning Trap
I've found that Magic is more "fun" for me when I figure out the weaknesses in my deck and then re-work it to be able to deal with those threats.
Windcoarse, I agree with you that P1P1 is defensible. I would take Baloth, but I don't think that it is a runaway.
In terms of colors over all, I personally think red is quite close to green in terms of card quality (meaning I think black, white, and blue all have better quality cards overall than either red or green). But I continually find myself surprised at the cards I can get late when I go green. Last week at FNM I got 3 Sylvan Rangers, 4 Giant Spiders, 2 Awakener Druids, an Acidic Slime, etc. I took the Druid around pick 9 of a pack. I got a Spider around pick 12 or 13. I would never play mono-green even with enough playables, because the color doesn't offer many removal spells, draw spells, or tricks, but pairing green with white, or black, or blue has been really good for me. Of course if there actually are other people drafting it at your table, that will take away many of the late pick steals.
I think you are wrong about finding common ground.
I find discard unenjoyable while counterspells and land destruction don't really bother me.
Dude... I've changed diapers whilst playing Magic Online... without missing a beat!
I hope they just say "no mythics any packs" but I'm not gonna hold my breath. ;-)
Lots of people here seem to think the Baloth should be the first pick. Green is horrible, easily the worst color. I don't pick up green for anything less than a windmill slam bomb, I avoid it. In my experience green isn't worth trying to pull together without the bombs. Opening decent green usually just means to me I can stick someone to my left in a color I won't be drafting if they don't hate the color. If it was an overwhelming stampede or titan that would be a different story. Baloth might be the best critter in this pack, but he is in the worst color. I'd rather be able to play the griffin than the baloth. It's way too early for sentinel, and white is a dominant color in the format. P1P1 is defensible, in my opinion.
I wonder... One of the things that fascinates me about Magic is how they keep a lot of balls juggling in the air. They have a lot of different people to please and they do seem receptive to feedback. And say what we want about their drive for profits, they do seem quite willing to fix mistakes (skullclamp being banned/restricted etc,) I can see them looking at this issue a year from now and saying "Maybe 1 mythic every 4 packs works a little better..eh?"
What's wrong with wanting to play to win? This is a competitive game, so competitive people will play. Spike's are a demographic Wizards aims at when developing cards, so I think they have just as much a responsibility to please their Spikes as they do their Timmys and Johnnys. If being able to attempt to play to win is no longer an option for a competitive player because of changes to the cost of the game then they are not going to be as happy as they were, thats a bad thing as it alienates a portion of the player base. Expecting a Spike to become a Timmy or Johnny because he now has no other choice is silly. Would it be reasonable for me to expect Timmy or Johnny to have to become a Spike? No.
I won't address the rest, but I think your second idea is terrible. Sideboards are what casual needs more than anything else in my mind. By playing best 2/3 I don't have to lose to someone playing a deck that doesn't interact in typical ways. Playing an enchantment only deck is in no way unfair or unfun or whatever you want to call it, but by playing only one game against it I'm basically being forced to auto lose a game because I only have ~4 answers to my opponent's 40 cards. This goes the same for any deck that doesn't interact in conventional ways (I just picked enchantments because I seem to see that more than milling, burn, combo, etc.)
I'll admit to being a bit upset when I played a single game against a raffinity deck in the casual room. I didn't mind the loss at all or even playing against a tier 1.5 deck, but when I asked if he would be willing to play a match he said no. (Remember, just because you don't have a sideboard doesn't mean you can't play best of 3.) So I went about making the most absurd deck with 40 cards that destroyed artifacts. I played him later that night and won on the back of some terrible jank because I had 'meta-gamed' against his deck. It's a pretty bold, obnoxious, and really crappy thing to do, but apparently I was really upset (I can't imagine wasting my time doing such a thing now). It's the only time I can recall being blocked when I really felt like I deserved it.
P1P1: wild griffin over baloth? pls.....not even close.
also, too many random pictures of stuff you dont need.
rd1g1: mull that hand? is that really a question?
yeah, duress taking a sign in blood he was never going to cast is =[ well, it's like duress urself heh
why would DoJ be any cheaper then damnation?
sta-range!
I just thought I'd say I enjoyed your article. I feel like people are hating on it pretty hard for expressing an opinion that doesn't match their own more than any real problems with the article itself. Especially given you explained the purpose of the article and didn't try to put together the ultimate reasoning explaining why everyone thinks what they think...just your own feelings.
I'm sure everyone has their stories, but I've still got this one game burned in my brain where my opponent blocked me for playing land destruction when I cast Wrecking Ball targeting his creature.
Him: I don't play against people who play LD.
Me: I'm targeting your creature.
Him: You'd play it on my land if you had to.
BLOCK
I can't remember if I laughed when it happened or if I was just stunned, but every time I think about it now it makes me chuckle a little.
Nice draft! I would run a 17th land over the Duress, though. Pack 2, pick 2 I would have tried to stay black/blue in order to have a good chance to run the Mind Control, though normally I'd value Pacifism a lot. A black card or the Ice Cage increases the chance that Mind Control will make the deck, and it's such a bomb.
I look forward to seeing your next article, thanks for posting this one!
I have a couple of comments:
1) The new player room is seriously underused because it only allows STD to be played. If the new player room allowed any format, then that would help migrate a bunch of the "I'm new to this format" stuff to a more appropriate place.
2) Best 2/3 matches should obviously not be an available option in the casual room. Sideboarding is pretty much by definition not casual, and anybody who wants to play with it can (and IMO should) go to the tournament practice room.
3) "Casual" depends so much on format that you can't really universally call anything out. For example, in Pauper, LD of any kind is a casual deck; there are no competitive LD decks. And playing Goblins, a creature based aggro deck without a single LD, counterspell, or discard spell, is not casual at all.
To me, the goal is more to get rid of "tournament" decks in the casual room, not so much any particular type of resource denial. But I have to admit, I play "tournament" decks in the casual room myself when I am first learning them, trying to get a feel for the draws and work out the mana base.
Finally, there are casual decks that totally suck to play against, depending. Certain ones that don't stand a chance against tournament decks, but are still popular, and become boring, repetitious, and tedious to play against. If I get my ass beat down by something new and innovative, I'll probably be happy. If I put a beatdown on something I've played against a hundred times, I'm probably bored.