thank you for pointing out that commander is supposed to be interactive. too many players seem to think its all about combos and screwing over your opps.
"...my favorite edh deck is my Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck that can lock all 3 of my opponents out of creatures for the rest of the game."
I would have to see how this plays out. Just reading it, some might say "douchebaggery". It also depends on your play group. Online, I probably wouldn't play something like that, but the online players are a little more spikier then EDH players.
I too think that it is a very time consuming format in terms of deck building. For every 75 cards in the deck, I have to check prices every time (well yeah I know, excluding those few basic lands of course); which means 75 times price checking.
Is this card legal? Which copies of that other one cost how much? This is an uncommon in that set but a common in the other, so is this legal? You know that this is not too appealing to most.
BUT!!!
But I don't care. I will do that once and will be done with it for a whole month. Which for me will mean 4 weekend tournaments. I personally always look for new challenges and opportunities to test my deckbuilding skills (which I believe is good), and I will join your tournaments with the most wicked and Spike-y deck you can imagine if the starting time is EU friendly.
Hi Xaoslegend I've already looked into the possibilities of running a budget event but I'm involved in too many things to take it forward, so its great someone else is willing to take up the gauntlet.
A few points to note as my idea used a higher price list but that's not an issue. You really need to have your banned list up before you start doing events but may I suggest you do an include list instead as it will be a lot shorter and less work to maintain. It also makes it a lot easier for people making decks as they can see what they can include a glance
Also try and make the event playable in both US and European time zones as you will attract a much wider player base.
I will ponder on your ideas for a bit longer and look into a few ways of presenting an include card list that's easy to use.
Maybe I'm just cynical but I'm often unsure of how to interpret compliments. My I drop my Jace and someone says "Nice Card" I don't know if he's being nice or a douche XD Meh, no I think I am just cynical.
It would make Heirloom unviable because for every deck I build, there is a potential that much of my deck will quickly become obsolute when the next month list comes out. No one is going to make the effort to deal with a list of 500 cards that are now banned because of a 5 cent price change.
A $1 cut off would be much more stable, because, as you mentioned, no more than a handful commons and uncommons (the vast majority of the cards, obviously) will never fluctuate above $1.
I guess I just have a little more faith in magic players. These aren't exactly average people, playing magic already means a tendency to have an affinity for detail and complexity. With the money saved and the dynamic nature of Heirloom I think a little more time looking is something that will be worthwhile to many people.
I hear where you're coming from. Can you explain in a little more detail why you think this would make Heirloom unviable (don't want the format going Falling Down on us without good cause "I'm not variant format viable!")
You should just forget about mythics all together (there appears to be only about 15 mythics between .80 and 1.20 anyway), and just call it quarter magic, i.e. all cards, regardless of rarity, at or under 25 cents. (Though I still think you would have too many card changes every month, but the deck prices would be closer to the range you are talking about).
Whoa the advanced search(http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/advanced-search.php) on mtgotraders is pretty awesome. Thanks for pointing that out, That should make brewing for Heirloom almost as easy as any format.
One note looks like you want to search one penny above the price cap you want so 0.00-0.06, for commons 0.00-0.11 for uncommons, 0.00-0.21 for rares, 0.00-1.01 for mythic! (just make sure you realize that some cards printed in premade decks are not counted as that rarity for Heirloom, eg Kird Ape does not count as a Mythic lol)
looks like 18 mythics are legal in Heirloom, (Platinum Angel go!)
2125 rares (ish, im not going to look for the exceptions right now)
5289 uncommons
7776 commons
Nice overview on deck building. Hits the highlights for sure.
The games can take a while but it also depends how you play. Playing beatdown means your games are going to be quicker because you are going to win fast or die fast. If you like control, however, be prepared to sit and stay a while.
I find the social aspect changes on a game by game basis. Sometimes you get a lively group, and other times people are there just to play. I find that complimenting an opponents card choice early on will open people up usually. Once the banter gets going things get more I interesting.
I just think with four different price points, you are going to have so many cards fluctuating every single month, that it is going to be nearly impossible to really grok the format from month to month. If the format changes my more than a 50 or so cards every month, it will just not be viable.
Nice to have such a detailed, thought out response.
I can't really claim credit for the pricing system myself. It was a meeting of several minds that eventually came to a consensus on the wisdom of it. (It's essentially 2.5 times the lowest cost for each type of card common being 2 uncommon 4 rare 8 and mythic $1 just to have an even, easy to remember number that actually allowed some mythics into the format without skewing the cost too much) The pricing system is about more than just keeping cost down and more than just having an easy system to remember (though I don't think what we came up with it that difficult)
We didn't want to emphasize or deemphasize any rarity because we wanted the format to reflect magic's core constructed formats. Putting the cap only at $1 emphasizes commons then uncommons rares very little and mythics hardly at all.
As far as the monthly list goes I think people are generally going to want a list of what's legal more than what's banned, so the shorter the easier, then again we'll probably just have a list of both so nothing about that is going to be easy lol.
(The rares allowed are $0.20 not $0.50 in case you misread that)
I may have highlighted the potential high side of pauper deck cost more than it's average but my representation of Heirloom prices is nothing but accurate. I've made 8 decks thus far trying to build the best decks I can and the top price has been $5.3 for a deck, with the average as I said at $3.5. So it is a very very very cheap format. (and again $20-25 for the $1 cap format is a lot more than that=P)
A monthly update of what has become legal and been banned will be a good resource for players once we get that going.
Thanks again for your input. Being challenged certianly promotes good idea making.
While the filter does not exclude foils they are paired with their normal counterparts in each set where possible so it's just an extra line to scan. The thing that makes traders easier to filter though is the advanced search which AJ pointed out to me the other day when I was failing to find a coherent way to list what I wanted. Advanced search makes things much more flexible.
Also, with a $1 limit, you essentially will have a pretty consistent list of those cards over $1, and a "watch list" of cards that fluctuate close to $1. The monthly update for most players would be just reviewing this "watch list" to see which cards fell below $1 for that month. I think it would make the format much more easy to get a feel for.
I tried to just go to mtgotraders, as you suggest, and list every card over $1. It was a bit difficult in that they don't have the search capability to exclude the foils and other more expensive versions of identical cards. If a trader provided this search capability, it would make things much easier.
* I just did a search for every card between .80 and 1.20, i.e. a "watch list" range, and it came up with around 1100 cards, but I would say at least 80 to 90 percent of these were foils, which seem to often go for $1, so the watch list would likely be closer to 100-200 cards.
Nice to hear more of your perspective. I appreciate the positive comments about my article a great deal. Thanks.
The price fluctuation issue I think I've commented on a bit, I will emphasize again though that I think given a monthly banned list having cards rotate every month is a great thing for the format and should the format become very popular certian problem cards and enablers would soon naturally become banned. (simian spirit guide, raze, jeweled amulet, scorched earth for the lando deck for example).
Rock is a type of deck that I think can emerge but will rely on synergies more than it will rely on individual card power(since those cards tend to be banned). my Wirewood Horror deck does pretty well http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=267869 but again it might be considered more combo than rock, but it plays alot like a rock deck and is a ton of fun (probably my favorite to play atm).
Appeal: If there were another format that offered what Heirloom offers I would be playing it already. All the other variants that I know of are just lacking in key ways for me. Theyre narrow of focus, have no natural way to purge problem cards, or are thought of as casual so much so that if you try to do your best to win people won't play with you. I've spent a lot of time playing Heirloom because it is in my mind a singularity that solves the issues I have with all other formats of magic. (that a lot of people have I'm sure)
Its funny, I play and enjoy pauper quite a bit (I gave up more costly formats a while a go). But I was recently also thinking of how we could have a format that was both inexpensive like pauper and allowed you to play as many cards as possible.
However, I came up with a different solution than you. I think the format does have to take into consideration prices somehow, but your idea of different price points for different rarities, I think is just way way to complicated. So to simplify, the format should just be every card under a dollar (dollar store magic? anyone). Much easier to explain to new players, and I would imagine, much easier to develop the monthly format restriction list.
Yes, this does mean that in theory a deck could cost a maximum of $60 or so, but this is not how it would ever work out, as most decent decks are going to naturally contain a mix of commons, uncommons, and rares (and occasionally the cheapest mythic) cards, most which will be significantly less than a $1. I doubt most decks would go over $20-25, still very affordable. I think you have to expect a *little* more expense if you are going to play with a much larger pool of cards. When you get down to it, most decks in your "heirloom" format would be at least $10 anyway, often closer to $20, when you start including .50 rares and $1 mythics. And $1 dollar magic would still cut out those overly pricey commons.
A couple other things:
I think you exaggerate the expense of pauper a little bit. Many, if not all, competitive pauper decks will cost ten dollars or less, which, is still plenty affordable for almost everybody (and especially in comparison, of course, to the price inflation we've seen in other formats). The real issue with pauper is, as you mention, strategy limitation, especially when it comes to the more midrange decks that need decent finishers. (I have yet to see a rock pauper deck that wins on a regular basis)
One thing you should at least mention is the Peasant format, which allows a certain amount of uncommons. I haven't played this at all, but I know it is an option.
But thanks for an interesting idea, obviously you are not the only one thinking about this!
i don't think this format will be able to compete with the other big contenders, but i had to comment just to make one thing clear:
Santa Claus is WR, not RG.
Pretty much what Tempesteye said is what I said in the comments of your initial remarks on Freed from the Real. Namely that the price fluxuations make it too random. In fact that is one of two huge problems. The other as Kalandine pointed out has to do with actually being able to read a list and compile a deck from it. Without an exactly listing to refer to this becomes a huge choir. I did build a rock variant using cheapish cards and was able to confirm that it was legal within the rules but it took me 3x longer than normal and in the end I deleted the deck because I knew it was crap. That is the other not so huge problem with this format. Appeal. Why would this appeal to me when I could play tribal, pauper, commander etc? Currently it does not, and frankly if everyone goes the easy route with ld and merfolk I think the format will die horribly.
On a different note I see you paid close attention to how articles are done here and really did a fine job presenting this. 5 fireballs for you.
The Heirloom community doesn't yet have such a website unfortunately for now it's mostly threads, youtube and articles and the integrity of the format. A script like you describe would be pretty awesome and maybe I'll start working on my blog a bit more to improve the resources available to Heirloom players (though I'm not stopping anyone else from doing so either, really I'm not =P)
good links to threads and such that aren't already in my article:
as much as i love commander the turns do take forever....i've done a few commander videos and its crazy how a game that took two hours play can be shown on a replay in 20-30 minutes.
See, that's actually my big issue with Commander. I have a lot of fun playing EDH at a table with people whether I know them or not. The game is fluid, there's conversation (and alcohol!) and I have a good time.
On MTGO it feels like an endless clickfest between phase changes and triggers and what-have-you, and turns feel like they're taking foooooooreeeeeeeeeverrrrrrrr. Maybe it's just me being impatient, but it's a real turn off for me.
Every time I've played commander I wind up finishing the game two hours later and I'm like, "Whoa where did my two hours go?" anyhow certianly a great format, my favorite edh deck is my Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck that can lock all 3 of my opponents out of creatures for the rest of the game.
thank you for pointing out that commander is supposed to be interactive. too many players seem to think its all about combos and screwing over your opps.
"...my favorite edh deck is my Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck that can lock all 3 of my opponents out of creatures for the rest of the game."
I would have to see how this plays out. Just reading it, some might say "douchebaggery". It also depends on your play group. Online, I probably wouldn't play something like that, but the online players are a little more spikier then EDH players.
I can agree with you. Some people are being douches and just say it to be sarcastic.
First a negative thing and then a positive one...
I too think that it is a very time consuming format in terms of deck building. For every 75 cards in the deck, I have to check prices every time (well yeah I know, excluding those few basic lands of course); which means 75 times price checking.
Is this card legal? Which copies of that other one cost how much? This is an uncommon in that set but a common in the other, so is this legal? You know that this is not too appealing to most.
BUT!!!
But I don't care. I will do that once and will be done with it for a whole month. Which for me will mean 4 weekend tournaments. I personally always look for new challenges and opportunities to test my deckbuilding skills (which I believe is good), and I will join your tournaments with the most wicked and Spike-y deck you can imagine if the starting time is EU friendly.
LE
Hi Xaoslegend I've already looked into the possibilities of running a budget event but I'm involved in too many things to take it forward, so its great someone else is willing to take up the gauntlet.
A few points to note as my idea used a higher price list but that's not an issue. You really need to have your banned list up before you start doing events but may I suggest you do an include list instead as it will be a lot shorter and less work to maintain. It also makes it a lot easier for people making decks as they can see what they can include a glance
Also try and make the event playable in both US and European time zones as you will attract a much wider player base.
I will ponder on your ideas for a bit longer and look into a few ways of presenting an include card list that's easy to use.
Good luck FG
Maybe I'm just cynical but I'm often unsure of how to interpret compliments. My I drop my Jace and someone says "Nice Card" I don't know if he's being nice or a douche XD Meh, no I think I am just cynical.
It would make Heirloom unviable because for every deck I build, there is a potential that much of my deck will quickly become obsolute when the next month list comes out. No one is going to make the effort to deal with a list of 500 cards that are now banned because of a 5 cent price change.
A $1 cut off would be much more stable, because, as you mentioned, no more than a handful commons and uncommons (the vast majority of the cards, obviously) will never fluctuate above $1.
Asabmow,
I guess I just have a little more faith in magic players. These aren't exactly average people, playing magic already means a tendency to have an affinity for detail and complexity. With the money saved and the dynamic nature of Heirloom I think a little more time looking is something that will be worthwhile to many people.
Xaoslegend-
Asabmow,
I hear where you're coming from. Can you explain in a little more detail why you think this would make Heirloom unviable (don't want the format going Falling Down on us without good cause "I'm not variant format viable!")
Xaoslegend-
You should just forget about mythics all together (there appears to be only about 15 mythics between .80 and 1.20 anyway), and just call it quarter magic, i.e. all cards, regardless of rarity, at or under 25 cents. (Though I still think you would have too many card changes every month, but the deck prices would be closer to the range you are talking about).
Whoa the advanced search(http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/advanced-search.php) on mtgotraders is pretty awesome. Thanks for pointing that out, That should make brewing for Heirloom almost as easy as any format.
One note looks like you want to search one penny above the price cap you want so 0.00-0.06, for commons 0.00-0.11 for uncommons, 0.00-0.21 for rares, 0.00-1.01 for mythic! (just make sure you realize that some cards printed in premade decks are not counted as that rarity for Heirloom, eg Kird Ape does not count as a Mythic lol)
looks like 18 mythics are legal in Heirloom, (Platinum Angel go!)
2125 rares (ish, im not going to look for the exceptions right now)
5289 uncommons
7776 commons
seems like a lot of cardpool to work from heh
Nice overview on deck building. Hits the highlights for sure.
The games can take a while but it also depends how you play. Playing beatdown means your games are going to be quicker because you are going to win fast or die fast. If you like control, however, be prepared to sit and stay a while.
I find the social aspect changes on a game by game basis. Sometimes you get a lively group, and other times people are there just to play. I find that complimenting an opponents card choice early on will open people up usually. Once the banter gets going things get more I interesting.
I just think with four different price points, you are going to have so many cards fluctuating every single month, that it is going to be nearly impossible to really grok the format from month to month. If the format changes my more than a 50 or so cards every month, it will just not be viable.
Hello Asabmow,
Nice to have such a detailed, thought out response.
I can't really claim credit for the pricing system myself. It was a meeting of several minds that eventually came to a consensus on the wisdom of it. (It's essentially 2.5 times the lowest cost for each type of card common being 2 uncommon 4 rare 8 and mythic $1 just to have an even, easy to remember number that actually allowed some mythics into the format without skewing the cost too much) The pricing system is about more than just keeping cost down and more than just having an easy system to remember (though I don't think what we came up with it that difficult)
We didn't want to emphasize or deemphasize any rarity because we wanted the format to reflect magic's core constructed formats. Putting the cap only at $1 emphasizes commons then uncommons rares very little and mythics hardly at all.
As far as the monthly list goes I think people are generally going to want a list of what's legal more than what's banned, so the shorter the easier, then again we'll probably just have a list of both so nothing about that is going to be easy lol.
(The rares allowed are $0.20 not $0.50 in case you misread that)
I may have highlighted the potential high side of pauper deck cost more than it's average but my representation of Heirloom prices is nothing but accurate. I've made 8 decks thus far trying to build the best decks I can and the top price has been $5.3 for a deck, with the average as I said at $3.5. So it is a very very very cheap format. (and again $20-25 for the $1 cap format is a lot more than that=P)
A monthly update of what has become legal and been banned will be a good resource for players once we get that going.
Thanks again for your input. Being challenged certianly promotes good idea making.
Xaoslegend-
While the filter does not exclude foils they are paired with their normal counterparts in each set where possible so it's just an extra line to scan. The thing that makes traders easier to filter though is the advanced search which AJ pointed out to me the other day when I was failing to find a coherent way to list what I wanted. Advanced search makes things much more flexible.
Also, with a $1 limit, you essentially will have a pretty consistent list of those cards over $1, and a "watch list" of cards that fluctuate close to $1. The monthly update for most players would be just reviewing this "watch list" to see which cards fell below $1 for that month. I think it would make the format much more easy to get a feel for.
I tried to just go to mtgotraders, as you suggest, and list every card over $1. It was a bit difficult in that they don't have the search capability to exclude the foils and other more expensive versions of identical cards. If a trader provided this search capability, it would make things much easier.
* I just did a search for every card between .80 and 1.20, i.e. a "watch list" range, and it came up with around 1100 cards, but I would say at least 80 to 90 percent of these were foils, which seem to often go for $1, so the watch list would likely be closer to 100-200 cards.
Hey there Mr. Laughingman,
I appreciate your pessimism. It will be so noted in the ship's log. As far as Santa goes I'm sure there are many aspects to him to explore:
WR Santa Claus: The Judge "Have you been naughty or nice? Tell Me! I know anyway!"
GW Santa Claus: Patron of Gifts "Let my gifts protect you."
RB Santa Claus: Secular agent of Hades "They were right all along, I am here to corrupt the youth! HOHOHOHOHOHo!"
Xaoslegend-
Paul,
Nice to hear more of your perspective. I appreciate the positive comments about my article a great deal. Thanks.
The price fluctuation issue I think I've commented on a bit, I will emphasize again though that I think given a monthly banned list having cards rotate every month is a great thing for the format and should the format become very popular certian problem cards and enablers would soon naturally become banned. (simian spirit guide, raze, jeweled amulet, scorched earth for the lando deck for example).
Rock is a type of deck that I think can emerge but will rely on synergies more than it will rely on individual card power(since those cards tend to be banned). my Wirewood Horror deck does pretty well http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=267869 but again it might be considered more combo than rock, but it plays alot like a rock deck and is a ton of fun (probably my favorite to play atm).
Appeal: If there were another format that offered what Heirloom offers I would be playing it already. All the other variants that I know of are just lacking in key ways for me. Theyre narrow of focus, have no natural way to purge problem cards, or are thought of as casual so much so that if you try to do your best to win people won't play with you. I've spent a lot of time playing Heirloom because it is in my mind a singularity that solves the issues I have with all other formats of magic. (that a lot of people have I'm sure)
Its funny, I play and enjoy pauper quite a bit (I gave up more costly formats a while a go). But I was recently also thinking of how we could have a format that was both inexpensive like pauper and allowed you to play as many cards as possible.
However, I came up with a different solution than you. I think the format does have to take into consideration prices somehow, but your idea of different price points for different rarities, I think is just way way to complicated. So to simplify, the format should just be every card under a dollar (dollar store magic? anyone). Much easier to explain to new players, and I would imagine, much easier to develop the monthly format restriction list.
Yes, this does mean that in theory a deck could cost a maximum of $60 or so, but this is not how it would ever work out, as most decent decks are going to naturally contain a mix of commons, uncommons, and rares (and occasionally the cheapest mythic) cards, most which will be significantly less than a $1. I doubt most decks would go over $20-25, still very affordable. I think you have to expect a *little* more expense if you are going to play with a much larger pool of cards. When you get down to it, most decks in your "heirloom" format would be at least $10 anyway, often closer to $20, when you start including .50 rares and $1 mythics. And $1 dollar magic would still cut out those overly pricey commons.
A couple other things:
I think you exaggerate the expense of pauper a little bit. Many, if not all, competitive pauper decks will cost ten dollars or less, which, is still plenty affordable for almost everybody (and especially in comparison, of course, to the price inflation we've seen in other formats). The real issue with pauper is, as you mention, strategy limitation, especially when it comes to the more midrange decks that need decent finishers. (I have yet to see a rock pauper deck that wins on a regular basis)
One thing you should at least mention is the Peasant format, which allows a certain amount of uncommons. I haven't played this at all, but I know it is an option.
But thanks for an interesting idea, obviously you are not the only one thinking about this!
Jonathan
i don't think this format will be able to compete with the other big contenders, but i had to comment just to make one thing clear:
Santa Claus is WR, not RG.
Pretty much what Tempesteye said is what I said in the comments of your initial remarks on Freed from the Real. Namely that the price fluxuations make it too random. In fact that is one of two huge problems. The other as Kalandine pointed out has to do with actually being able to read a list and compile a deck from it. Without an exactly listing to refer to this becomes a huge choir. I did build a rock variant using cheapish cards and was able to confirm that it was legal within the rules but it took me 3x longer than normal and in the end I deleted the deck because I knew it was crap. That is the other not so huge problem with this format. Appeal. Why would this appeal to me when I could play tribal, pauper, commander etc? Currently it does not, and frankly if everyone goes the easy route with ld and merfolk I think the format will die horribly.
On a different note I see you paid close attention to how articles are done here and really did a fine job presenting this. 5 fireballs for you.
Hey there Onefinemess,
The Heirloom community doesn't yet have such a website unfortunately for now it's mostly threads, youtube and articles and the integrity of the format. A script like you describe would be pretty awesome and maybe I'll start working on my blog a bit more to improve the resources available to Heirloom players (though I'm not stopping anyone else from doing so either, really I'm not =P)
good links to threads and such that aren't already in my article:
My youtube channel that has several Heirloom videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/xaoslegend#p/c/36DBCC2C0690D8E5
Deck Advice thread
http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1994&sid=2124d9eb19560002c...
Another deck advice thread
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=266434
Goblin Animosity deck thread
http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1990&sid=6fcf6dbb50778e8c3...
Vedalken Affinity deck thread
http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1989&sid=6fcf6dbb50778e8c3...
Wirewood Horror deck thread
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=267869
Hope some of these help, plenty of meat to chew on I think! =P
Xaoslegend-
as much as i love commander the turns do take forever....i've done a few commander videos and its crazy how a game that took two hours play can be shown on a replay in 20-30 minutes.
See, that's actually my big issue with Commander. I have a lot of fun playing EDH at a table with people whether I know them or not. The game is fluid, there's conversation (and alcohol!) and I have a good time.
On MTGO it feels like an endless clickfest between phase changes and triggers and what-have-you, and turns feel like they're taking foooooooreeeeeeeeeverrrrrrrr. Maybe it's just me being impatient, but it's a real turn off for me.
Every time I've played commander I wind up finishing the game two hours later and I'm like, "Whoa where did my two hours go?" anyhow certianly a great format, my favorite edh deck is my Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck that can lock all 3 of my opponents out of creatures for the rest of the game.