Yes, we can't look at the value of a card just in itself when considering redemption. But I'm pretty sure it's because it is being played less thanks to Treasure Cruise and Dig. The redemption also has influence but if dig and cruise get banned, Liliana will rise again and she'll reach the same numbers as before, even if it takes some time.
Mtgo has trouble with events of 200 players. I think if they set up an event with 4000 players we'd be without mtgo for a week at least. V3 actually handled a very big event (I don't remember the number but maybe 1000 players). It was a free Momir event that rewarded a number of avatars depending on the number of rounds you won.
I think it's anyone's fault that MTGO can't get a 4000 players event. Even if everything was well, no major bugs and the ones that appeared got quickly fixed, stable servers, everything working fine, etc it's completely different to play irl or in mtgo. That GP was a celebration of Magic. There's no way the level of interaction with other players can be the same in mtgo, even if chats were actually well implemented.
I think what he meant was that the mythics of the set are inflated because of redemption and then you add to that the heat of being a top card in the format...Not that the price was all due to redemption.
What I think is sad is that MTGO can't support a 4,000 person event without crashing.
People paying $50 to join a paper event and then dropping just to get the goodies doesn't compare to anything offered online. In fact, online you can't drop before the first round without completely withdrawing from the event. Isn't it clear that the what they offer for participating and in prizes for a Grand Prix are much different than what's ever been offerred online?
I don't think the fault is with online Legacy players.
Thanks for the kind words Frankie. Glad you like the code. Let me know if it gives you any problems. Found half a dozen small glitches when using it for this article (which I believe I fixed. ;p)
Thanks for taking the time to accredit me with the decklist idea, much appreciated! Just for clarity, I make no claim to be the first person to try this formatting- I believe a similar style is popular with a handful of writers on the biggest content producing sites. Nevertheless, it's a great feeling to potentially have contributed to a future of better content formatting for PureMTGO.com, even though you, of course, deserve all the real credit.
Love the code by the way! I'll most certainly look into using it for my next article.
The first time I've ever been certain that a bunch of people wearing those creepy goat masks from 'Eyes Wide Shut' were lurking behind me while reading a Magic article.
I think Liliana has been dropping in price because as I've stated in my pauper articles, attrition based decks don't do well when your opponent has draw threes. Her discard ability can fuel your opponents graveyard for the cruise and then she is often seen with goyf and since your opponent can use their delve spells to minimize goyf, it makes Jund not so great and decks with Liliana in them in Modern (Jund, Junk, and 8 rack) have not been winning nearly as much as they were three months ago, outside of modern, Liliana isn't really played. I suspect Liliana will drop down to the mid-twenties like Karn and Tezz.
Weave Fate is marginally better than Divination, although I don't think Divination is good to be honest. You never really want to tap out on turn 3 unless you have to, most of the time you want to hold up Dissolve/Disdainful/Removal. Then again, it's only 1 copy, so it's more of a late game spell than anything, so I think it's better than Weave Fate just because you can save 1 mana.
The Interpret the Signs is cute, and the nature of the 1 of copy makes it so when it's bad, it's only 1 out of 10ish games (just a random number there), and it's good about half the time. It feels like it's trying to be the "Revelation" of the deck, but it's probably more often than not just a worse Dig Through Time. I feel in the late game you don't care so much about card quantity, but rather card quality, which is why it plays Dig over Cruise.
I think the biggest reason UB isn't popular is because Perilous Vault is in some instances strictly worse then End Hostilities. Sultai Charm, Utter End, Reclamation Sage, Banishing Light are all cards that can deal with a Vault, making it a less reliable option over End Hostilities. Having your Vault blown up and waiting at least 2 more turns to blow everything up might just leave you dead. The way UB looks, it feels like you have to enough things in the first couple turns in order to make Vault actually do anything. I haven't played UB at all, but for now I see no reason to move from UWR to UB. However if the deck is working for you, then go for it and keep playing it! I think in this Standard you should just play whatever you feel you have more experience with and use that to your advantage.
Eh, deck building isn't an insurmountable problem. I think it takes some getting used to, but after while it's about the same as before.
I agree more with the nod to format rotation. Now that there is no formal rotation and currently no real focus for Modern on MTGO, there's less enthusiasm. Hopefully Modern gets some love early next year (or spring if MMA2 is on the horizon).
An interesting question. At the very start of the format, I was seriously worried about the potnetial domainance of abzan in the format (I wrote one and a half articles on it). On paper and in my early testing it easily outclassed the rest of the format. In practice though, Temur and to a lesser degree jeskai tempo does a great job of keeping it honest imo. Abzan only ever really gets to play one spell a turn. In between Stubborn Denial, Crater's Claws for x=0 (+2) and disdainful stroke, Temur can often play two relevant spells in a single turn and that gives them a good tempo advantage. Abzan should win most long games, but can certainly be tempo-ed out and I think that's enough to stop it being as dominant as GRx monsters in Theros - I think :).
Your best bet as is always the case with Testing is to acquaint yourself with the other players who are interested in the format and test with them. Because randomly picking up games in the wild will result in people not reading the notes. I am guilt of that myself because games pop up so quickly and it is still a wack a mole sub game to get in before someone else does.
As someone who is extremely new to this format, I find it fascinating. The mix of power with budget is perfect for someone like myself who doesn't have the massive bankroll one needs to play true competitive Legacy.
My only real issue that I seem to have is that I never know how to test decks or even just practice with decks. Leading up to this particular event your article covers, I labeled my room "Heirloom Practice" a dozen times and probably ten of those times my opponent opened with a Turn 1: Fetch, Deathrite Shaman.
How are other participants dealing with this?
Also, great article. I love the diversity this format offers and your article highlights some of the more interesting decks that can be featured.
Another great article on Block! How do you feel about recent uprise in Abzan's popularity? Don't you think we will end up in a similar Block like Theros, where we have one dominant midrange deck and it's mirrors all the time? Because that deck looks quite dominant right now and that should not come as a surprise, Abzan is also the most popular colour combination in Standard.
Cavern of Souls: not sure, it's not for every deck. What if you don't even run creatures? Or run too many different types to bother?
Ancient Tomb: not really relevant in Commander as it is in other formats. You draw it later, it's a pain. You draw it early, you're bound to get those 2 damages for A LOT of turns, it's not that you can power a shop deck and quickly do 120 points of damage from there.
I didn't even put Temple of the false God in the list, and that's more of a Commander staple.
Unstable Obelisk: I guess so.
Sisay's Ring + Ur-Golem's Eye: they're bad versions of Thran Dynamo for redundancy. I guess they're kinda popular, though.
Palladium Myr: I generally put in the list stable accelerators, but this is another that shows up enough. I'm not sure popularity has to be a criterion (the list mostly tells people what they SHOULD play), but I'll think about it.
That's not a possibility. Sudden Shock only deals 2 and the worst is costing 2 mana. Chain Lightning burns them out faster and allows you to cast more spells on the same turn. In the mirrors you're not very efficient in countering removal anyway. I don't play Spell Pierce or Daze even getting your removal countered is not that relevant most of the time. And I'm more than fine getting my removal countered by FoW.
It's amazing how when goblins first came out, they were unplayable. Now they are one of, if not the most, powerful tribe.
Aww, no Uncle Fester? How am I supposed to do 'The only good goblin is a dead goblin' if you don't include the best goblin zombie?
Does anyone know why KTK booster prices went from 3.2 to 2.8 or less today?
Yes, we can't look at the value of a card just in itself when considering redemption. But I'm pretty sure it's because it is being played less thanks to Treasure Cruise and Dig. The redemption also has influence but if dig and cruise get banned, Liliana will rise again and she'll reach the same numbers as before, even if it takes some time.
Mtgo has trouble with events of 200 players. I think if they set up an event with 4000 players we'd be without mtgo for a week at least. V3 actually handled a very big event (I don't remember the number but maybe 1000 players). It was a free Momir event that rewarded a number of avatars depending on the number of rounds you won.
I think it's anyone's fault that MTGO can't get a 4000 players event. Even if everything was well, no major bugs and the ones that appeared got quickly fixed, stable servers, everything working fine, etc it's completely different to play irl or in mtgo. That GP was a celebration of Magic. There's no way the level of interaction with other players can be the same in mtgo, even if chats were actually well implemented.
I think what he meant was that the mythics of the set are inflated because of redemption and then you add to that the heat of being a top card in the format...Not that the price was all due to redemption.
I'm not sure how the possibility of redemption was holding the cards price up when the card was significantly cheaper in paper than online.
What I think is sad is that MTGO can't support a 4,000 person event without crashing.
People paying $50 to join a paper event and then dropping just to get the goodies doesn't compare to anything offered online. In fact, online you can't drop before the first round without completely withdrawing from the event. Isn't it clear that the what they offer for participating and in prizes for a Grand Prix are much different than what's ever been offerred online?
I don't think the fault is with online Legacy players.
Her drop in price is due to redemption ending for Innistrad.
Thanks for the kind words Frankie. Glad you like the code. Let me know if it gives you any problems. Found half a dozen small glitches when using it for this article (which I believe I fixed. ;p)
Awesome article Paul as we all expect by now.
Thanks for taking the time to accredit me with the decklist idea, much appreciated! Just for clarity, I make no claim to be the first person to try this formatting- I believe a similar style is popular with a handful of writers on the biggest content producing sites. Nevertheless, it's a great feeling to potentially have contributed to a future of better content formatting for PureMTGO.com, even though you, of course, deserve all the real credit.
Love the code by the way! I'll most certainly look into using it for my next article.
I suspect treasure cruise will be banned in modern and bob and lili will rebound long before lili gets down to the 20s.
"Without further ado, the defloration!"
The first time I've ever been certain that a bunch of people wearing those creepy goat masks from 'Eyes Wide Shut' were lurking behind me while reading a Magic article.
{shiver}
I suspect your are correct, but that may change once people are less afraid of TC and Dig. Maybe.
I think Liliana has been dropping in price because as I've stated in my pauper articles, attrition based decks don't do well when your opponent has draw threes. Her discard ability can fuel your opponents graveyard for the cruise and then she is often seen with goyf and since your opponent can use their delve spells to minimize goyf, it makes Jund not so great and decks with Liliana in them in Modern (Jund, Junk, and 8 rack) have not been winning nearly as much as they were three months ago, outside of modern, Liliana isn't really played. I suspect Liliana will drop down to the mid-twenties like Karn and Tezz.
Weave Fate is marginally better than Divination, although I don't think Divination is good to be honest. You never really want to tap out on turn 3 unless you have to, most of the time you want to hold up Dissolve/Disdainful/Removal. Then again, it's only 1 copy, so it's more of a late game spell than anything, so I think it's better than Weave Fate just because you can save 1 mana.
The Interpret the Signs is cute, and the nature of the 1 of copy makes it so when it's bad, it's only 1 out of 10ish games (just a random number there), and it's good about half the time. It feels like it's trying to be the "Revelation" of the deck, but it's probably more often than not just a worse Dig Through Time. I feel in the late game you don't care so much about card quantity, but rather card quality, which is why it plays Dig over Cruise.
I think the biggest reason UB isn't popular is because Perilous Vault is in some instances strictly worse then End Hostilities. Sultai Charm, Utter End, Reclamation Sage, Banishing Light are all cards that can deal with a Vault, making it a less reliable option over End Hostilities. Having your Vault blown up and waiting at least 2 more turns to blow everything up might just leave you dead. The way UB looks, it feels like you have to enough things in the first couple turns in order to make Vault actually do anything. I haven't played UB at all, but for now I see no reason to move from UWR to UB. However if the deck is working for you, then go for it and keep playing it! I think in this Standard you should just play whatever you feel you have more experience with and use that to your advantage.
for me, I've 100% lost interest in modern thanks to treasure cruise. One anecodte only, but that's where I'm at atm.
Eh, deck building isn't an insurmountable problem. I think it takes some getting used to, but after while it's about the same as before.
I agree more with the nod to format rotation. Now that there is no formal rotation and currently no real focus for Modern on MTGO, there's less enthusiasm. Hopefully Modern gets some love early next year (or spring if MMA2 is on the horizon).
An interesting question. At the very start of the format, I was seriously worried about the potnetial domainance of abzan in the format (I wrote one and a half articles on it). On paper and in my early testing it easily outclassed the rest of the format. In practice though, Temur and to a lesser degree jeskai tempo does a great job of keeping it honest imo. Abzan only ever really gets to play one spell a turn. In between Stubborn Denial, Crater's Claws for x=0 (+2) and disdainful stroke, Temur can often play two relevant spells in a single turn and that gives them a good tempo advantage. Abzan should win most long games, but can certainly be tempo-ed out and I think that's enough to stop it being as dominant as GRx monsters in Theros - I think :).
Your best bet as is always the case with Testing is to acquaint yourself with the other players who are interested in the format and test with them. Because randomly picking up games in the wild will result in people not reading the notes. I am guilt of that myself because games pop up so quickly and it is still a wack a mole sub game to get in before someone else does.
As someone who is extremely new to this format, I find it fascinating. The mix of power with budget is perfect for someone like myself who doesn't have the massive bankroll one needs to play true competitive Legacy.
My only real issue that I seem to have is that I never know how to test decks or even just practice with decks. Leading up to this particular event your article covers, I labeled my room "Heirloom Practice" a dozen times and probably ten of those times my opponent opened with a Turn 1: Fetch, Deathrite Shaman.
How are other participants dealing with this?
Also, great article. I love the diversity this format offers and your article highlights some of the more interesting decks that can be featured.
Another great article on Block! How do you feel about recent uprise in Abzan's popularity? Don't you think we will end up in a similar Block like Theros, where we have one dominant midrange deck and it's mirrors all the time? Because that deck looks quite dominant right now and that should not come as a surprise, Abzan is also the most popular colour combination in Standard.
Arcane Lighthouse: yes. Myriad Landscape, too.
Cavern of Souls: not sure, it's not for every deck. What if you don't even run creatures? Or run too many different types to bother?
Ancient Tomb: not really relevant in Commander as it is in other formats. You draw it later, it's a pain. You draw it early, you're bound to get those 2 damages for A LOT of turns, it's not that you can power a shop deck and quickly do 120 points of damage from there.
I didn't even put Temple of the false God in the list, and that's more of a Commander staple.
Unstable Obelisk: I guess so.
Sisay's Ring + Ur-Golem's Eye: they're bad versions of Thran Dynamo for redundancy. I guess they're kinda popular, though.
Palladium Myr: I generally put in the list stable accelerators, but this is another that shows up enough. I'm not sure popularity has to be a criterion (the list mostly tells people what they SHOULD play), but I'll think about it.
Memory Jar: well, sure.
Looks like slugapalooza is going to be a big slugfest....
That's not a possibility. Sudden Shock only deals 2 and the worst is costing 2 mana. Chain Lightning burns them out faster and allows you to cast more spells on the same turn. In the mirrors you're not very efficient in countering removal anyway. I don't play Spell Pierce or Daze even getting your removal countered is not that relevant most of the time. And I'm more than fine getting my removal countered by FoW.