Varying the likelihood of opening value rares depending on a players background with the game wouldn't be intended to have any effect on the aftermarket, as some players would benefit while others would lose, though I expect it might be difficult to balance this so that the overall distribution wasn't skewed. And the whole point of doing this would be to get more packs opened, as a result of hooking more players. But I agree - the likelihood of this getting out would be high, and the PR disaster would be devastating. I suspect it's just a combination of randomness and the way human perception works - I read something similar about superstition once.
My other lingering paranoia is that there's a cheat code out there being run by some stooges in China or the like who play the game for $$. Have you ever been playing a game where you seem to have it in the bag, when your opponent suddenly pauses for 5 minutes and then plays the only card that can crush you (loxodon warhammer or the like). Makes you kind of wonder what that pause was all about. Dramatic tension? :) Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often, and most likely it's just one of those odd events. But still...
Nothing makes me laugh like an agitated bald guy wearing a "cat-hat" telling ME to inhale a "Phallus"! Wow man, what an extensive vocabulary.
Can I call you Pussy Helmet from now on? You look like a pussy, and you are wearing a cat-helmet. I think Pussy-Helmet is a very fitting dually-suggestive nic-name for you. I could have incorporated more recognized medical terminology, but I'm not trying to be cute here. Just sit back, chill out, and quit running your outer Labia.
Peace out Pussy Helmet, and no offense to the other weird guy holding a cat in his arms. I have a cat too, I just don't wear her out in public, like it's some D.O.T. approved "Phallus" inhalation preventative. It's cool that he does though. I know it takes a lot of repetition and training to get animals to do what you want them to.
I don't mind opponents who put a combo or two into their deck. I just don't like the players who build decks around putting together one combo. If someone starts tutoring for cards or has a commander that leads to a combo, I usually point it out and gun for them right away. Hopefully the other players follow my lead.
I was actually in a game last night where one player was using a wizard deck. He got the the point where he was drawing lots of cards and taking extra turns. The game was fun until that point. The rest of us just quit because it was boring just waiting for his turns to end. I find the best way to enforce the gentleman's agreement is to just not play with people that you aren't have fun playing against. Just quit and join another game. It makes an even bigger impact when all three opponents quit when they see a certain deck type in play.
1. IMHO, Condemn is mandatory in any deck with white. It keeps a pesky commander away for at least 2-3 turns, most times.
2. Why is Reliquary Tower so popular? It hinders your mana development and it's effect is pretty marginal (again, IMHO). I'd play an extra dual/multicolored land, even a basic most times, over it.
3. Is Boseiju so needed to be deemed a staple? How often counters show up? Can counters be turned into a consistent strategy in a FFA/Commander game?
4. Sun Droplet is a nice card, but it loses a lot of power as a singleton. If you're playing it and have an artifact theme in your deck, even a minor one, throwing Sculpting Steel and Copy Artifact into the mix never hurts.
I only just started playing mtgo (but played casual since joven's ferrets), went straight into pauper. But I think your format is better, as long as the ok list is updated quarterly or such (not monthly). And as long as I'm not the only one playing ;). Though I think the price of pauper decks is totally within reasonable bounds, and the metagame is very healthy - it's just the lack of space for innovation and deck building.
I assume also that all cards banned in legacy or pauper should also be banned (skull clamp, cranial plating)
I have to agree on the Armored Ascensions, they're a real bomb and you should generally pick them if you're in white. Also in a deck with a lot of flyers, the Infantry Veteran and the Inspired Charges are worth considering, as they can help you push through more damage faster & outrace your opponents.
A nice draft all in all though, thanks for the writeup!
Hiya to all!
@speks - I was thinking along the line of not having too much in depth analysis as it would be kinda tedious for readers. I would like some seriousness with my articles but not too much to make it boring. Thus the short summary skipping parts where explanations were not needed. Really glad you like my article. I will keep learning and improve on my writing so as to let you enjoy reading them. Thanks. =)
@Lythand - Thanks for helping me out I really appreciate it (._.)*Bow*. Got the point about abreviations will improve on those. *Cardname*(Abreviation) would be better to educate newer players.
@Westane - Are there any particular writers that I can read up on? Would like to learn about their tournament writing format. I read articles on SCG and followed them mostly.
Tarmotog is a close friend of mine and he gave me his insight about play by play analysis. The legacy portion had more of those but the whole article was brimming towards 3k word count and I had to cut a little here and there. Will try to have a more serious article now and then to explain gameplays and decisions. Do let me know where to improve guys. Thanks! (^^)
Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. I happy to hear from everyone that has something to say about Heirloom.
There has been a lot of discussion about how often to update a ban list in the thread. It's something that will be arrived at balancing the desire not to allow cards to become too valuable thus defeating the budget purpose of the format and allowing for as much consistency as possible for players.
I don't think that allowing card legalities to remain indefinitely once set would work. Some inconveniences are necessary to maintain the integrity of the format but of course were trying to arrive at a system that minimizes them.
I'm pleased you've found something that pleases you in our budget venture of Heirloom.
This issue you illustrate is why everyone pretty much agrees that a banned/legal list needs to be set down on some kind of regular basis that lasts for a predictable amount of time. Very early to long term I think it's the only way the format survives and grows. I will try to convince the other players of the format to agree on a timing system and get to doing this as soon as possible.
I can do a lot alone. I can do more with help of course and that last thing I want to do is fracture the small group that already plays with a dividing issue or because they feel like they weren't given ample opportunity to contribute to decisions.
I'd love to see you across the table sometime slinging your Heirloom brew against mine. (screename Xaoslegend)
It's certianly true that it will take some time before the format starts to have a secondary market impact. For that time period it will be a small enough group of people playing that the format will be one that rewards the individual or group play testers and builders that work at it and will certianly keep the fear of cards changing legality constantly mostly hollow.
Once it gets popular enough to effect prices a static banned/legal list can be arrived at once every month or two months or quarter as you suggest. Since we haven't actually enacted that plan yet it's not something that isn't flexible. I would tend to support the most popular timing for that though I think it would have to be at least within a few weeks of a new set being released(including old set reprints MED sets ect) to keep people from being antsy about wanting to play new cards.
I love the idea. It's basically pauper in Spirit, if not in Letter. And that's good. It's why our Sunday evening Peasant PRE has a $10 cap on card prices.
The problem of course is the logistics. It's of course very helpful to have MTGOTraders as a single definitive source, and better to over-exclude than to have ambiguity. But in theory, you could lose a card legality not only week to week but in a few hours due to outside sources. Say for example Punishing Fire just after the Grove of the Burnwillows combo took PT Hawaii. That's a rare case certainly (and the card came down again eventually) I'd hate to be in a situation where you say "that card is illegal" and they say "I just checked yesterday, it was fine!" Which is likely to happen eventually.
OTOH, pre-listing every legal card sounds like a tremendous amount of work as well. It's probably the best way to go, just awkward.
Anyway it does sound like fun and I might like to check it out myself.
Fat chance of heirloom affecting card prices. No offense but it would have to be huge for it to start really having an impact. The reason pauper does is because it is huge. I am not saying it couldn't ever happen but the likely outcome is prices may slightly fluctuate a little while people fill out gaps that they need but overall the price increases/decreases will come because of outside forces (standard cards becoming staples/losing staple status for example. .1 Rares have the most likelihood of gaining value because most of the time this is just the deflated value until people find out what the card is good for. Then it rushes up overnight and levels off somewhat higher.)
What bothers me about this format and makes it a definite no go for me is what Doomhed alluded to. The fact that the format is tied to the secondary market which is not only volatile but interpretable. (You can buy certain rares on certain bots for 50% or less of their price on traders.) Making Traders the arbiter is fine for simplicity's sake and why not? Heath deserves a bit of advertisement considering all he does for us. But I don't think it is a healthy idea. I did try it as I said before and I do think it is intriguing if painful. What I would like to see is a concrete and complete banned/restricted list that will NOT change every month much less every hour. Then you might have something. Maybe a quarterly review (about the time that the new sets come out.)
Thanks a lot for your perspective and for contributing to the conversation. I can obviously relate to the feeling that you know a format is awesome and that if everyone else could just see what you see that we'd have MTGO Utopia.
I understand that the idea of the most popular Heirloom cards becoming illegal immediately or at the end of each month is something that you don't like the idea of. For me it's one of the best things about Heirloom. I don't want to be playing against the same decks a year from now that I'm playing against now. I like building decks and if the main components of my decks quickly become banned I'll take that as the greatest compliment(if its because of me) and then go on to try to get the next set of cards banned(through the market). Eventually as cards have been banned long enough people will forget about them and they'll be legal for a month or two again and we'll have a constantly dynamic format.
The best thing about playing magic online to me is the playing not the conformity of ideas. When I first started playing magic it was casual and much like the wild wild west. You never knew what they'd bring and they didn't know what you had, and that made it awesome. I think sometimes people are so used to certain conventions that they can't see the value of alternative paradigms.
I don't think it's very likely that wizards will support another budget format officially unless pauper were somehow to lose 90% of it's players.
I also don't think wizards particularly cares for budget competitive formats. They like formats that promote people buying things from the MTGO store.
I think 15 point magic has a lot of merits but I don't think it occupies the same magic utility space as Heirloom does. 15 point magic is a moderately budget format vs official formats but not when compared to pauper or Heirloom. It's a singleton format which takes it into it's own realm of magic playing experience dramatically different than most constructed formats in fundamentally structural ways.
Both formats are good, but they don't compete for the same motivations people have to play them and so shouldn't try to displace one another.
The problem with the format you have listed is that it totally relies on the secondary market. This is why the building on a budget MTGO series is such a joke currently. They build a "budget" deck that drives up the cost of the obscure gems in it to way beyond the average budget if you don't buy them 5 minutes after the article publishes. If you picked a format like the one I suggested, you increase the odds of being able to get that format turned into something wizards could actually support with a deckbuilding option.
I could see 15 point magic being a viable format if we actually got enough people behind it. Any attempt to make a format based only on price is going to backfire. It already happened with pauper. You are going to have cards inflated in demand until they reach exactly over the format limits, then they will not sell. This is not good for a format to lose cards due to them being popular. It seems the only thing you are trying to do is stop any form of netdecking or constructive collaboration and in the same shot, have a way to complain if someone "rips off your idea" and causes your pet cards to be illegal. I don't find having my cards made illegal based on other people liking the same cards to be a fun idea. It seems kinda odd that a format being published online has the inherent ability to shut down online collaboration.
for example, the most expensive deck you could build right now with the system I described would run a few hundred, but it would not be very good. the better decks would be the obscure and the aggro/midrange.
I understand it is currently your pet format, and your writing shows you care about casual competitive formats, but this is not going to be the way to do it.
Singleton and point systems are certianly interesting ways to go. The point system and singleton aspects help control the power level of the decks and make for a whole different play experience and that's always fun.
we used to play a singleton format where you could have only 15 points worth of cards. rares were 3 points, uncommons 1 point and commons free. This was prior to the release of onslaught.
Do I play that bomb rare when I could run 3 uncommons instead?
I tried to resurrect the format years later and the most popular deck was blue/red with scepter, top, counterbalance, trinket mage, fire/ice, counterspell, mana leak, daze, man lands x5, brainstorm, ponder, tinker, serum visions, etc. I think it might have only had one rare, which was a platinum angel.
Thanks for the positive appraisal of my article. You may be right about the bold text, I may have gone a bit Bold crazy, I'll try to tone it down next time. Thanks for letting me know it bothered you.
For time issues I'd like to mention again that what Paul Leicht brought up: The mtgotraders advanced card search is amazing.
(The advanced search will be on the top of the page for further adjustment such as by color key word set ect. Just make sure you pay attention to the caveats of the legality rules which are pretty common sense eg. Necropotence is not a mythic, it's rare. premade decks do not establish rarity)
I tried to focus on the potential expensiveness of pauper and its upward trend but I can see how I may have lost the fact that the avg competitive pauper deck is still probably about $8(maybe slightly lower) I wasn't trying to say pauper was bad I was just trying to illustrate how much cheaper this format is and to make clear the differences between the two formats to demonstrate the value of playing either one or both.
Maybe price gouging is not the correct phrase here. I meant to express my belief that wizards are well aware of pauper and that their motivation for printing exceptional commons(in premade sets/decks) that have not been released online yet previously is often an economic calculation, and one that frustrates part of the purpose of pauper.
I really hope you give the format a try. It's been so much fun playing these last few weeks for me and the more people who are involved slightly or majorly the better Heirloom will be for everyone (including me of course).
I believe I'll run the free entry Sunday tournament with tix prizes supplied by me at 12 AM Pacific standard time(in California USA). Let me know if anyone thinks that's a bad time to do it or if you plan on coming. (there will be a door prize to a random person that attends to the end that doesn't win a prize otherwise.
Yes a better article than last time, I enjoyed the Legacy report.
That said, I enjoyed the report, but not so much reading it. With tournament reports especially I think good formatting is particularly important. It's easy for rounds and games and whatnot to run together, and I had to re-read a paragraph or two to find my bearings. Of course, that could just be me.
@Lythand: I agree with card abbreviations to a point. I think that after a card's been identified it's perfectly acceptable to shorthand it so long as it's not the focus of the sentence. Example, "He swung with both his 'Gofys only to meet a (Wing Shards).". Also there's some could that really just should be abbreviated after they've been identified. I can't even say Krark Clan Ironworks three times in a sentence let alone spell it! The key, I think, is to identify the card prior to shorthand'ing it. But then, that could just be me too XD
I had to go back and re-read the Mother of RUnes joke and it finally got to me. Funny.
Glad to see you used the card links this time. There are a few that are broken. That can either be due to mispelling or sometimes the auto link does not work and you have to manually link them. Some cards you did not link at all.
A suggestion. I see this not only in your article, but in articles of more experience writers. When writing about a certain "Something" try not to use abreviations for cards, or nicknames. Use the actual name. Sure experienced players know what "Goyf" is, but a new player just learning Magic and reading over articles for suggestions is not going to know that "Goyf" is Tarmogoyf or Bob is Dark Confidant. A better article then last time, keep at it.
It magnifies something that has been true since Alpha. You crack a pack and you hope to get relevant cards but your pool is so large to choose from that you are guaranteed a poor crack every now and then and more now than then if you are like me and have 0 luck. With the addition of another rarity it gets worse because now you are hoping for good cards in the 1 in 8 pack slot (which is more like 1 in 60 at the minimum) and then if not a mythic then you hope for a nonjank rare. Nonjank rares are always outnumbered. This was done deliberately by Dr. Garfield (I have this on second hand account) who felt to make the game interesting on a collectible level you needed to be able to have bad cards opened, so that your opening of something good becomes spectacular. It's a theory similar to why gambling is so popular.
Varying the likelihood of opening value rares depending on a players background with the game wouldn't be intended to have any effect on the aftermarket, as some players would benefit while others would lose, though I expect it might be difficult to balance this so that the overall distribution wasn't skewed. And the whole point of doing this would be to get more packs opened, as a result of hooking more players. But I agree - the likelihood of this getting out would be high, and the PR disaster would be devastating. I suspect it's just a combination of randomness and the way human perception works - I read something similar about superstition once.
My other lingering paranoia is that there's a cheat code out there being run by some stooges in China or the like who play the game for $$. Have you ever been playing a game where you seem to have it in the bag, when your opponent suddenly pauses for 5 minutes and then plays the only card that can crush you (loxodon warhammer or the like). Makes you kind of wonder what that pause was all about. Dramatic tension? :) Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often, and most likely it's just one of those odd events. But still...
Nothing makes me laugh like an agitated bald guy wearing a "cat-hat" telling ME to inhale a "Phallus"! Wow man, what an extensive vocabulary.
Can I call you Pussy Helmet from now on? You look like a pussy, and you are wearing a cat-helmet. I think Pussy-Helmet is a very fitting dually-suggestive nic-name for you. I could have incorporated more recognized medical terminology, but I'm not trying to be cute here. Just sit back, chill out, and quit running your outer Labia.
Peace out Pussy Helmet, and no offense to the other weird guy holding a cat in his arms. I have a cat too, I just don't wear her out in public, like it's some D.O.T. approved "Phallus" inhalation preventative. It's cool that he does though. I know it takes a lot of repetition and training to get animals to do what you want them to.
I don't mind opponents who put a combo or two into their deck. I just don't like the players who build decks around putting together one combo. If someone starts tutoring for cards or has a commander that leads to a combo, I usually point it out and gun for them right away. Hopefully the other players follow my lead.
I was actually in a game last night where one player was using a wizard deck. He got the the point where he was drawing lots of cards and taking extra turns. The game was fun until that point. The rest of us just quit because it was boring just waiting for his turns to end. I find the best way to enforce the gentleman's agreement is to just not play with people that you aren't have fun playing against. Just quit and join another game. It makes an even bigger impact when all three opponents quit when they see a certain deck type in play.
1. IMHO, Condemn is mandatory in any deck with white. It keeps a pesky commander away for at least 2-3 turns, most times.
2. Why is Reliquary Tower so popular? It hinders your mana development and it's effect is pretty marginal (again, IMHO). I'd play an extra dual/multicolored land, even a basic most times, over it.
3. Is Boseiju so needed to be deemed a staple? How often counters show up? Can counters be turned into a consistent strategy in a FFA/Commander game?
4. Sun Droplet is a nice card, but it loses a lot of power as a singleton. If you're playing it and have an artifact theme in your deck, even a minor one, throwing Sculpting Steel and Copy Artifact into the mix never hurts.
Hi,
i realy enjoy pauper and maybe this format for the future!
The problem i see is, that realy powerful cards, like skullclamp etc., are cheap, because they are not legal for most formats because of banning etc.
So banning like in legacy and classic would be clever, like feast said before!
I only just started playing mtgo (but played casual since joven's ferrets), went straight into pauper. But I think your format is better, as long as the ok list is updated quarterly or such (not monthly). And as long as I'm not the only one playing ;). Though I think the price of pauper decks is totally within reasonable bounds, and the metagame is very healthy - it's just the lack of space for innovation and deck building.
I assume also that all cards banned in legacy or pauper should also be banned (skull clamp, cranial plating)
I have to agree on the Armored Ascensions, they're a real bomb and you should generally pick them if you're in white. Also in a deck with a lot of flyers, the Infantry Veteran and the Inspired Charges are worth considering, as they can help you push through more damage faster & outrace your opponents.
A nice draft all in all though, thanks for the writeup!
Hiya to all!
@speks - I was thinking along the line of not having too much in depth analysis as it would be kinda tedious for readers. I would like some seriousness with my articles but not too much to make it boring. Thus the short summary skipping parts where explanations were not needed. Really glad you like my article. I will keep learning and improve on my writing so as to let you enjoy reading them. Thanks. =)
@Lythand - Thanks for helping me out I really appreciate it (._.)*Bow*. Got the point about abreviations will improve on those. *Cardname*(Abreviation) would be better to educate newer players.
@Westane - Are there any particular writers that I can read up on? Would like to learn about their tournament writing format. I read articles on SCG and followed them mostly.
Tarmotog is a close friend of mine and he gave me his insight about play by play analysis. The legacy portion had more of those but the whole article was brimming towards 3k word count and I had to cut a little here and there. Will try to have a more serious article now and then to explain gameplays and decisions. Do let me know where to improve guys. Thanks! (^^)
Hey Kaladine,
Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. I happy to hear from everyone that has something to say about Heirloom.
There has been a lot of discussion about how often to update a ban list in the thread. It's something that will be arrived at balancing the desire not to allow cards to become too valuable thus defeating the budget purpose of the format and allowing for as much consistency as possible for players.
I don't think that allowing card legalities to remain indefinitely once set would work. Some inconveniences are necessary to maintain the integrity of the format but of course were trying to arrive at a system that minimizes them.
Xaoslegend-
1) I'm not bald.
2) I've been with my wife for 7 years now.
3) Go forcibly inhale a phallus of mighty girth.
I <3 the internet.
Hi there Amar,
I'm pleased you've found something that pleases you in our budget venture of Heirloom.
This issue you illustrate is why everyone pretty much agrees that a banned/legal list needs to be set down on some kind of regular basis that lasts for a predictable amount of time. Very early to long term I think it's the only way the format survives and grows. I will try to convince the other players of the format to agree on a timing system and get to doing this as soon as possible.
I can do a lot alone. I can do more with help of course and that last thing I want to do is fracture the small group that already plays with a dividing issue or because they feel like they weren't given ample opportunity to contribute to decisions.
I'd love to see you across the table sometime slinging your Heirloom brew against mine. (screename Xaoslegend)
All the best.
Xaoslegend-
Hey Paul,
It's certianly true that it will take some time before the format starts to have a secondary market impact. For that time period it will be a small enough group of people playing that the format will be one that rewards the individual or group play testers and builders that work at it and will certianly keep the fear of cards changing legality constantly mostly hollow.
Once it gets popular enough to effect prices a static banned/legal list can be arrived at once every month or two months or quarter as you suggest. Since we haven't actually enacted that plan yet it's not something that isn't flexible. I would tend to support the most popular timing for that though I think it would have to be at least within a few weeks of a new set being released(including old set reprints MED sets ect) to keep people from being antsy about wanting to play new cards.
Xaoslegend-
Whats up with you bald white guys with cats in your pictures?
It's pretty f'n weird. I don't see a damn girlfriend around this place, but I sure as hell see two cats! Distrubing...
I love the idea. It's basically pauper in Spirit, if not in Letter. And that's good. It's why our Sunday evening Peasant PRE has a $10 cap on card prices.
The problem of course is the logistics. It's of course very helpful to have MTGOTraders as a single definitive source, and better to over-exclude than to have ambiguity. But in theory, you could lose a card legality not only week to week but in a few hours due to outside sources. Say for example Punishing Fire just after the Grove of the Burnwillows combo took PT Hawaii. That's a rare case certainly (and the card came down again eventually) I'd hate to be in a situation where you say "that card is illegal" and they say "I just checked yesterday, it was fine!" Which is likely to happen eventually.
OTOH, pre-listing every legal card sounds like a tremendous amount of work as well. It's probably the best way to go, just awkward.
Anyway it does sound like fun and I might like to check it out myself.
Fat chance of heirloom affecting card prices. No offense but it would have to be huge for it to start really having an impact. The reason pauper does is because it is huge. I am not saying it couldn't ever happen but the likely outcome is prices may slightly fluctuate a little while people fill out gaps that they need but overall the price increases/decreases will come because of outside forces (standard cards becoming staples/losing staple status for example. .1 Rares have the most likelihood of gaining value because most of the time this is just the deflated value until people find out what the card is good for. Then it rushes up overnight and levels off somewhat higher.)
What bothers me about this format and makes it a definite no go for me is what Doomhed alluded to. The fact that the format is tied to the secondary market which is not only volatile but interpretable. (You can buy certain rares on certain bots for 50% or less of their price on traders.) Making Traders the arbiter is fine for simplicity's sake and why not? Heath deserves a bit of advertisement considering all he does for us. But I don't think it is a healthy idea. I did try it as I said before and I do think it is intriguing if painful. What I would like to see is a concrete and complete banned/restricted list that will NOT change every month much less every hour. Then you might have something. Maybe a quarterly review (about the time that the new sets come out.)
Hey Doomhed,
Thanks a lot for your perspective and for contributing to the conversation. I can obviously relate to the feeling that you know a format is awesome and that if everyone else could just see what you see that we'd have MTGO Utopia.
I understand that the idea of the most popular Heirloom cards becoming illegal immediately or at the end of each month is something that you don't like the idea of. For me it's one of the best things about Heirloom. I don't want to be playing against the same decks a year from now that I'm playing against now. I like building decks and if the main components of my decks quickly become banned I'll take that as the greatest compliment(if its because of me) and then go on to try to get the next set of cards banned(through the market). Eventually as cards have been banned long enough people will forget about them and they'll be legal for a month or two again and we'll have a constantly dynamic format.
The best thing about playing magic online to me is the playing not the conformity of ideas. When I first started playing magic it was casual and much like the wild wild west. You never knew what they'd bring and they didn't know what you had, and that made it awesome. I think sometimes people are so used to certain conventions that they can't see the value of alternative paradigms.
I don't think it's very likely that wizards will support another budget format officially unless pauper were somehow to lose 90% of it's players.
I also don't think wizards particularly cares for budget competitive formats. They like formats that promote people buying things from the MTGO store.
I think 15 point magic has a lot of merits but I don't think it occupies the same magic utility space as Heirloom does. 15 point magic is a moderately budget format vs official formats but not when compared to pauper or Heirloom. It's a singleton format which takes it into it's own realm of magic playing experience dramatically different than most constructed formats in fundamentally structural ways.
Both formats are good, but they don't compete for the same motivations people have to play them and so shouldn't try to displace one another.
Xaoslegend-
Please take this as constructive criticism-
The problem with the format you have listed is that it totally relies on the secondary market. This is why the building on a budget MTGO series is such a joke currently. They build a "budget" deck that drives up the cost of the obscure gems in it to way beyond the average budget if you don't buy them 5 minutes after the article publishes. If you picked a format like the one I suggested, you increase the odds of being able to get that format turned into something wizards could actually support with a deckbuilding option.
I could see 15 point magic being a viable format if we actually got enough people behind it. Any attempt to make a format based only on price is going to backfire. It already happened with pauper. You are going to have cards inflated in demand until they reach exactly over the format limits, then they will not sell. This is not good for a format to lose cards due to them being popular. It seems the only thing you are trying to do is stop any form of netdecking or constructive collaboration and in the same shot, have a way to complain if someone "rips off your idea" and causes your pet cards to be illegal. I don't find having my cards made illegal based on other people liking the same cards to be a fun idea. It seems kinda odd that a format being published online has the inherent ability to shut down online collaboration.
for example, the most expensive deck you could build right now with the system I described would run a few hundred, but it would not be very good. the better decks would be the obscure and the aggro/midrange.
I understand it is currently your pet format, and your writing shows you care about casual competitive formats, but this is not going to be the way to do it.
My point exactly Westane. It is ok to abbreviate after it has been identified the first time around.
Hey Doomhed,
Singleton and point systems are certianly interesting ways to go. The point system and singleton aspects help control the power level of the decks and make for a whole different play experience and that's always fun.
Xaoslegend-
we used to play a singleton format where you could have only 15 points worth of cards. rares were 3 points, uncommons 1 point and commons free. This was prior to the release of onslaught.
Do I play that bomb rare when I could run 3 uncommons instead?
I tried to resurrect the format years later and the most popular deck was blue/red with scepter, top, counterbalance, trinket mage, fire/ice, counterspell, mana leak, daze, man lands x5, brainstorm, ponder, tinker, serum visions, etc. I think it might have only had one rare, which was a platinum angel.
Hey there Lythand,
Thanks for the positive appraisal of my article. You may be right about the bold text, I may have gone a bit Bold crazy, I'll try to tone it down next time. Thanks for letting me know it bothered you.
For time issues I'd like to mention again that what Paul Leicht brought up: The mtgotraders advanced card search is amazing.
All Heirloom commons that are legal on MTGO
http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/advanced-search.php?search=1&ProductNam...
All uncommons
http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/advanced-search.php?search=1&ProductNam...
All rares
http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/advanced-search.php?search=1&ProductNam...
All mythic
http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/advanced-search.php?search=1&ProductNam...
(The advanced search will be on the top of the page for further adjustment such as by color key word set ect. Just make sure you pay attention to the caveats of the legality rules which are pretty common sense eg. Necropotence is not a mythic, it's rare. premade decks do not establish rarity)
I tried to focus on the potential expensiveness of pauper and its upward trend but I can see how I may have lost the fact that the avg competitive pauper deck is still probably about $8(maybe slightly lower) I wasn't trying to say pauper was bad I was just trying to illustrate how much cheaper this format is and to make clear the differences between the two formats to demonstrate the value of playing either one or both.
Maybe price gouging is not the correct phrase here. I meant to express my belief that wizards are well aware of pauper and that their motivation for printing exceptional commons(in premade sets/decks) that have not been released online yet previously is often an economic calculation, and one that frustrates part of the purpose of pauper.
I really hope you give the format a try. It's been so much fun playing these last few weeks for me and the more people who are involved slightly or majorly the better Heirloom will be for everyone (including me of course).
I believe I'll run the free entry Sunday tournament with tix prizes supplied by me at 12 AM Pacific standard time(in California USA). Let me know if anyone thinks that's a bad time to do it or if you plan on coming. (there will be a door prize to a random person that attends to the end that doesn't win a prize otherwise.
Xaoslegend-
No, i mean, just look at his uniform.
Red - White.
That's all.
Yes a better article than last time, I enjoyed the Legacy report.
That said, I enjoyed the report, but not so much reading it. With tournament reports especially I think good formatting is particularly important. It's easy for rounds and games and whatnot to run together, and I had to re-read a paragraph or two to find my bearings. Of course, that could just be me.
@Lythand: I agree with card abbreviations to a point. I think that after a card's been identified it's perfectly acceptable to shorthand it so long as it's not the focus of the sentence. Example, "He swung with both his 'Gofys only to meet a (Wing Shards).". Also there's some could that really just should be abbreviated after they've been identified. I can't even say Krark Clan Ironworks three times in a sentence let alone spell it! The key, I think, is to identify the card prior to shorthand'ing it. But then, that could just be me too XD
I had to go back and re-read the Mother of RUnes joke and it finally got to me. Funny.
Glad to see you used the card links this time. There are a few that are broken. That can either be due to mispelling or sometimes the auto link does not work and you have to manually link them. Some cards you did not link at all.
A suggestion. I see this not only in your article, but in articles of more experience writers. When writing about a certain "Something" try not to use abreviations for cards, or nicknames. Use the actual name. Sure experienced players know what "Goyf" is, but a new player just learning Magic and reading over articles for suggestions is not going to know that "Goyf" is Tarmogoyf or Bob is Dark Confidant. A better article then last time, keep at it.
It magnifies something that has been true since Alpha. You crack a pack and you hope to get relevant cards but your pool is so large to choose from that you are guaranteed a poor crack every now and then and more now than then if you are like me and have 0 luck. With the addition of another rarity it gets worse because now you are hoping for good cards in the 1 in 8 pack slot (which is more like 1 in 60 at the minimum) and then if not a mythic then you hope for a nonjank rare. Nonjank rares are always outnumbered. This was done deliberately by Dr. Garfield (I have this on second hand account) who felt to make the game interesting on a collectible level you needed to be able to have bad cards opened, so that your opening of something good becomes spectacular. It's a theory similar to why gambling is so popular.