Much like one reply, most casual room attendees will more than likely be hunting for a particular (not necessarily one though) achievement. Don't have a chance for the achievement, disconnect. Doesn't seem to make the casual room any better that way. Will make it worse IMHO.
Also, seems ripe for abuse without all kinds of conditional coding. You play your friend, each of you with 100 card decks of 90% lands. Neither of you do anything until you untap on turn 60. You get an achievement, but it's quite meaningless, because there was no competition. Think alot of the example achievements through and you end up with alot of silliness. Special conditional coding, not something WotC will devote much time to.
Finally, as I see it, with the casual game as it is on MTGO, I'm not sure a casual room really exists (not trying to start a debate, just stating as I see it). I see your point, but I don't much visit the causal room now because of this point of view, and I see myself doing less so with this proposal. More snerts is not my cup of tea. I see your point of view though, but achievements don't work well as a casual mechanic.
I just want leagues back. It'll never happen, but I can always hope.
Goblins is tier 1, while the rest stick in the 1.5 range because of specific matchups. Elves / Slivers are awesome until they run into heavy removal, Elves is far more consistent/better but Sliver lists usually has more slots for "tricks." Faeries is great unless they run into creature-combo like Elves / Slivers.
Those are all the competitive decks that are tribal without modification that I know of. There's more options available if you're modifying decks or inventing new ones for the event of course.
Actually if we count Humans, tier 1 WW becomes available, and so does tier 2 Inside Out combo.
You don't want to reward only tournament play. Achievements should be community-building, so it's important to have casual achievements, since that's where community-building is most important.
I think having special achievements that can only be awarded by moderators is also a good thing. Make it so that a player can recommend another player for a Good Sportsmanship achievement. Mods could then review the game log, see if the player is deserving, and grant it after a certain number of verified good sportsmanship games. They could also take it away if a player is reported for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Have a reward for being helpful in chat, or for giving good rules advice, stuff like that.
Reward players for making the community better is the most important thing. Playing fun decks in casual, experimenting with weird strategies, etc, are good for community building and should be encouraged. Playing unfun decks shouldn't be (ergo, no achievements for destroying 10 lands in a game, because people hate that).
Jesus it still thinks I'm spamming. I wasn't 20 minutes ago, where did you get the idea I'm spamming now, you stupid filter.
I think you're right that MTGO needs achievements, but I can't say I like the achivements you've put up. Untap on turn 61 means: PLAY A STALL DECK TO GET ME. Gain 1000 life? You'll probably have to execute an infinitely repeatable loop to achieve that, and those aren't fun at all to execute on MTGO. Most likely your opponent will concede way before you ever get there anyway.
An achievement must not encourage tedious games and crap. Otherwise you're basically asking people to start games with the express purpose of unlocking achievements. Two players with an infinite life combo, alright, I gain 1000 life while you F7, then once I'm done you gain 1000 life while I F7, fine let's concede now. This isn't something you want to encourage.
Ideally, achievements will encourage players to interact, to do fun stuff with fun cards, and to try different types of strategies. NOT ruin the game for everyone.
Note: why the hell does the CAPTCHA thing always think I'm writing spam? I'm a registered user and I do believe I don't have an history of spamming. Seriously, someone fix this please? If you're registered, it isn't your first post, and you've never had a post deleted fo spamming in the past, the system shouldn't assume I'm spamming. Also, maybe check if I'm trying to post a URL or something, how the hell can I spam without linking to some crappy site? I hate CAPTCHAs, is that an L or an I? I WILL FIND OUT SOON.
So I skimmed the most recent PE results and from what I can tell the only Stompy list that made it to t8 got eliminated by Elves. I didn't check PREs, but those are a far more casual environment than PEs and you can't really compare the two.
Urza's Saga did a ton of pushing the envelop, but Lackey wasn't broken back then. All the really problematic goblins - Warchief, Piledriver, Siege-Gang Commander, etc. - were in the future.
As for finding something that could cheat a giant or treefolk into play - the closest is Elvish Piper - although both Tinker and Oath of Druids are close, and both are banned in Legacy for just that reason.
Insects are one of my favorite tribes because they have some very good cards but they don't have the obvious broken tribal cards like elves and goblins have. As your article has shown, insect decks don't make themselves, there are a lot of different directions you can go with them.
You need to clarify a bit. How many Mono-Green Stompy decks have participated in the recent PEs? What is the percentage that were successful? What about the same stats for Elves?
And seriously, what does Stompy (without cloak) do better than Elves?
Awesome.
I think there HAS to be a Trophy Case for winners. I imagine Achievements to be more of a casual player thing since they don’t win anything else for doing what they do, but competitive play drives the game. And I bet more drafts would fire, especially in underplayed formats, if badges were awarded.
- win without playing any creature
- win wihtout playing any artifact
- win without playing any instant
- win without playing any sorcery
- win without playing any enchantment
- win without playing any land
- win without giving any damage to your opponent
- win wihtout be damaged
- win without having destroyed, discarded, exiled or sacrified any card
Never played this format before, but after such an informative read - I think I'd have a chance. Theres a land that regenerates insects and rats I believe...can't remember the name
I have a mono-green insect deck myself. Beacon of Creation is too good to pass up, imo.
Much like one reply, most casual room attendees will more than likely be hunting for a particular (not necessarily one though) achievement. Don't have a chance for the achievement, disconnect. Doesn't seem to make the casual room any better that way. Will make it worse IMHO.
Also, seems ripe for abuse without all kinds of conditional coding. You play your friend, each of you with 100 card decks of 90% lands. Neither of you do anything until you untap on turn 60. You get an achievement, but it's quite meaningless, because there was no competition. Think alot of the example achievements through and you end up with alot of silliness. Special conditional coding, not something WotC will devote much time to.
Finally, as I see it, with the casual game as it is on MTGO, I'm not sure a casual room really exists (not trying to start a debate, just stating as I see it). I see your point, but I don't much visit the causal room now because of this point of view, and I see myself doing less so with this proposal. More snerts is not my cup of tea. I see your point of view though, but achievements don't work well as a casual mechanic.
I just want leagues back. It'll never happen, but I can always hope.
Well in terms of Tribes, pauper has these decks:
Goblins
Elves
Faeries
GW Slivers
Goblins is tier 1, while the rest stick in the 1.5 range because of specific matchups. Elves / Slivers are awesome until they run into heavy removal, Elves is far more consistent/better but Sliver lists usually has more slots for "tricks." Faeries is great unless they run into creature-combo like Elves / Slivers.
Those are all the competitive decks that are tribal without modification that I know of. There's more options available if you're modifying decks or inventing new ones for the event of course.
Actually if we count Humans, tier 1 WW becomes available, and so does tier 2 Inside Out combo.
You don't want to reward only tournament play. Achievements should be community-building, so it's important to have casual achievements, since that's where community-building is most important.
I think having special achievements that can only be awarded by moderators is also a good thing. Make it so that a player can recommend another player for a Good Sportsmanship achievement. Mods could then review the game log, see if the player is deserving, and grant it after a certain number of verified good sportsmanship games. They could also take it away if a player is reported for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Have a reward for being helpful in chat, or for giving good rules advice, stuff like that.
Reward players for making the community better is the most important thing. Playing fun decks in casual, experimenting with weird strategies, etc, are good for community building and should be encouraged. Playing unfun decks shouldn't be (ergo, no achievements for destroying 10 lands in a game, because people hate that).
Jesus it still thinks I'm spamming. I wasn't 20 minutes ago, where did you get the idea I'm spamming now, you stupid filter.
Achievements should indead be reduced to the basic ones:
Won an 8-player draft event
Won an 8-player constructed event
Won a Daily XX Event and so on..
Those would mean something
I think you're right that MTGO needs achievements, but I can't say I like the achivements you've put up. Untap on turn 61 means: PLAY A STALL DECK TO GET ME. Gain 1000 life? You'll probably have to execute an infinitely repeatable loop to achieve that, and those aren't fun at all to execute on MTGO. Most likely your opponent will concede way before you ever get there anyway.
An achievement must not encourage tedious games and crap. Otherwise you're basically asking people to start games with the express purpose of unlocking achievements. Two players with an infinite life combo, alright, I gain 1000 life while you F7, then once I'm done you gain 1000 life while I F7, fine let's concede now. This isn't something you want to encourage.
Ideally, achievements will encourage players to interact, to do fun stuff with fun cards, and to try different types of strategies. NOT ruin the game for everyone.
Note: why the hell does the CAPTCHA thing always think I'm writing spam? I'm a registered user and I do believe I don't have an history of spamming. Seriously, someone fix this please? If you're registered, it isn't your first post, and you've never had a post deleted fo spamming in the past, the system shouldn't assume I'm spamming. Also, maybe check if I'm trying to post a URL or something, how the hell can I spam without linking to some crappy site? I hate CAPTCHAs, is that an L or an I? I WILL FIND OUT SOON.
So I skimmed the most recent PE results and from what I can tell the only Stompy list that made it to t8 got eliminated by Elves. I didn't check PREs, but those are a far more casual environment than PEs and you can't really compare the two.
Urza's Saga did a ton of pushing the envelop, but Lackey wasn't broken back then. All the really problematic goblins - Warchief, Piledriver, Siege-Gang Commander, etc. - were in the future.
As for finding something that could cheat a giant or treefolk into play - the closest is Elvish Piper - although both Tinker and Oath of Druids are close, and both are banned in Legacy for just that reason.
Insects are one of my favorite tribes because they have some very good cards but they don't have the obvious broken tribal cards like elves and goblins have. As your article has shown, insect decks don't make themselves, there are a lot of different directions you can go with them.
Get an achievement for 1000 opponants disconnecting because they don't like being beat fairly.
I think I got that achievement over the weekend.
You need to clarify a bit. How many Mono-Green Stompy decks have participated in the recent PEs? What is the percentage that were successful? What about the same stats for Elves?
And seriously, what does Stompy (without cloak) do better than Elves?
Awesome.
I think there HAS to be a Trophy Case for winners. I imagine Achievements to be more of a casual player thing since they don’t win anything else for doing what they do, but competitive play drives the game. And I bet more drafts would fire, especially in underplayed formats, if badges were awarded.
I like some of the older versions of card art and Darkpact will never be online so I deicded to replace Jaya's image with that one.
I've changed quite a few images like Demonic Tutor, Hurkyl's Recall and the Urza Tron for the older versions.
I made a barbed shocker/megrim deck a while ago...one of those decks that seems totally broken when it works, and horrible when it doesn't
- Win before opponent concedes 1000 times.
- " " " 1500 times
- " " " 2000 times
ETC
ETC
Maybe a gentleman's agrreement will be made between casual players to not concede when locked out of a game.
Great artwork, great title, infuriating and intriguing decks.
Swarmyard is the one you're thinking of.
Amazing
Wow with the images. Almost overload. :)
Achievement on mtgo is a very nice idea !
I would add these :
WIN WITHOUT
- win without playing any creature
- win wihtout playing any artifact
- win without playing any instant
- win without playing any sorcery
- win without playing any enchantment
- win without playing any land
- win without giving any damage to your opponent
- win wihtout be damaged
- win without having destroyed, discarded, exiled or sacrified any card
:)
Bane of the living is one of my favorite insects.
Thought this sounded familiar.
Yeah I assumed they were red herrings but it seemed implied that you had to use all the resources available. Maybe I misread that.
Never played this format before, but after such an informative read - I think I'd have a chance. Theres a land that regenerates insects and rats I believe...can't remember the name
Recent tournament results are contrary to this assertion.
Green Stompy has made top 8 in three recent PEs/PREs whereas Elves have only made one top 8. More in this week's Pauper Recap.