The Legacy "Sultai Landlock" deck is, if memory serves, actual Team America. The name is from the movie Team America: World Police and is a reference to all of the land destruction in the deck. It was never terribly popular and eventually the moniker extended to all BUG decks for a time, but this is where it originated.
The best thing about the league announcement in my book is that they will try to match you against people at the same point in the league.... no more trying to get your games in right away in order to avoid playing the 10-0 decks that are grinding breakers.
I think you're right about the price of the Khans fetches. If you don't have them, they're useful. If you want a good long-term investment, it's good to hoard them (paper or digital). There is literally zero downside.
It has also become weird from a flavor point of view. Elves of the Celtic tradition are unpredictable alien beings. Elves of the Tolkienian tradition are super-warriors. Elves of Magic: The Gathering are mostly known to be... mystical gardeners or something.
Yeah the hatred for elves goes a lot deeper than just a few years of the apocalypse. We are talking way before Ezuri was even a twinkle in some degenerate's evil eye.
I miss casting Deranged Hermits and such just because its too boring to consider the "better" elves and no point in considering the less efficient.
Yeah, but we're talking of different things. You're criticizing the player's approach that uses Deadeye Navigator (to keep using it as the one example at hand) to try and win through the same, deadliest Deadeye Navigator combos.
Whereas I'm criticizing the manager's approach that assumes Deadeye Navigator is (relatively) harmless because the deadliest Deadeye Navigator combos won't be used.
Yours is a fair criticism that I can't help but share, considering I banned Deadeye Navigator in my event because it had become out of control and dead-ended (no pun intended) and unfun and terminally uncreative.
My criticism is about methodology. It's about the correct principle of testing anything, really: you have to do it in extreme conditions, not in safe conditions. It's the same for V4: they test the interface with accounts that have 20 buddies, 10 decks, and 500 cards. And yup, it works pretty well under those conditions. Too bad there's people in the real world that have 500 buddies, 300 decks and 50k cards. So the interface collapses. Had they collected some real world data first, they would have known that they had to be sure the interface worked with 3000 buddies, 1000 decks and 500k cards.
The car metaphor also speaks to this: the speed limits exist because they know how fast a car goes, and they correctly assume people will try and use that full speed if not somehow prevented. But if they don't test the car at full speed, they won't know. They have to test it at full speed to make it safe, as opposed to assume that everyone will use the car responsibly because everybody likes to take it easy and drive at a leisurely pace. Any assumption that discounts basic human psychology is doomed to fail.
You even namecheck more Elvish archetypes than it's due, Paul: I wish we'd see Infect Elves or Warrior Elves in TribAp sometimes. Alas, it's 99% Elfball/ramp Elves with some random endgame that can range from Ezuri to whatever. Given that Elves generate nearly infinite mana in a bad day, it's just a matter of either watch them build the win, or sweep the board before that and they lose (because they are forced to go all-in with their ramp strategy). Either way, it's rarely an interesting game.
I'm also saddened because as a green player, I'd like to build ramp decks, and I do, but there's always that bitter awareness that whatever I try to do, an Elf deck would do it better. And then maybe I think, "I could build an Elf ramp with an elaborate endgame." But what's the point? It would just play like any other Elf ramp and then do something strange at the end, assuming the opponent would actually stay and watch rather than concede.
But it's not the poor Elves' fault — if anything, R&D could have dialed down the ramp a little over the years, rather than constantly double down on it: was Elvish Archdruid really necessary? Was Heritage Druid really necessary? Did they really think Ezuri was a good design? Next time, they might just do an Elf that says, "20: You win the game", so it'll spare us the wait for more clicking.
The Elf tribe has great stuff. Some truly great cards are only incidentally Elves, like Momir or Deathrite Shaman. And who doesn't love Elvish Aberration?
Scion you may not have had much interaction with AJ but I have. Let me tell you, AJ is a huge fan of MTG and also hates elves. Not all elves (though his statement above seems to contradict that) but all the elves that ruined them for people who used to love them (like me.)
Once you have seen the Nth iteration/variation of stompy elves, elves guised as druids, elves guised as warriors, combo elves, Elf infect, etc they start to blur and when they start to become ubiquitous (every newb gravitates to them and goblins initially and they are the easy button tribe of choice amongst budget players) they cease to be adorable green men/women and become that hated monotonous source of uncreativity that is choking the very life out of the game.
I don't feel quite as strongly and some elves are near and dear to my heart (including the fan favorite berserker) but I empathize.
I LOVE elves, I want to vote for them all. I've never seen an elf deck I didn't want to play, hexproof: sure, infect: yes please, cascade: umm best haste creature ever according to Channelfireball. I don't see how AJ can claim to be a fan of magic and not love the little green men from the woods.
Here is where we disagree to some extent in that it isn't dumbing anything down to not to exploit an already known exploit. I hate that kind of thinking that puts things in boxes and packages them neatly. If I come up with a cool johnny combo I don't want to have to repeat it a billion times just because it is cool and the most efficient way to build. Efficiency kills creativity to some extent. Sometimes you have to be willing to use sub par cards/interactions if you want to see what's on the other side of "What if?"
Also an aside to your analogy: Sure going 100mi an hour will get you there faster but you might hit a few old ladies and kids on the way home. There is a REASON for speed limits. :p
Chord of calling into hornet nest vs a stalled board, then anger of the gods. :D Not earthquake but it works. Also chord of calling is the usual method for generating Hornet tokens ala Queen too but occasionally creature ramp (elf, caryatid) works as well.
I see your point and your reasoning. It's a fair comment. The question is, do we want to see what they'd do to the banned list in the name of keeping it casual if we give them the competitive data to work with? My thought is both parties would walk away unhappy from that.
In the video Pardee posted on YouTube, he played zero decks that want to interact with their opponent, twice vs Affinity, Loam Assult, and Hexproof. Yes it is important to note that the deck can go off turn two/three, but Goryo's Vengeance can win turn two without interaction, storm can win turn three without interaction. I think over time people learn how to play against the deck, people figure out what to IOK and Thoughtseize from hands and hold counters at the right time and the deck will fall to be just like storm, only the best pilots with the deck will do well, ie Finkel with storm.
The Legacy "Sultai Landlock" deck is, if memory serves, actual Team America. The name is from the movie Team America: World Police and is a reference to all of the land destruction in the deck. It was never terribly popular and eventually the moniker extended to all BUG decks for a time, but this is where it originated.
Thanks leebs - those are a ton of fun
Z
The best thing about the league announcement in my book is that they will try to match you against people at the same point in the league.... no more trying to get your games in right away in order to avoid playing the 10-0 decks that are grinding breakers.
That insect deck is simply awesome - looks green, feels green but burn the poor one on the other side..
Pete, can you add to the timeline "Changelings working on V4", which has been promised by Alison three months ago here?
I think you're right about the price of the Khans fetches. If you don't have them, they're useful. If you want a good long-term investment, it's good to hoard them (paper or digital). There is literally zero downside.
Thanks, BoB!
(Somehow I managed to not notice this post until now!)
It has also become weird from a flavor point of view. Elves of the Celtic tradition are unpredictable alien beings. Elves of the Tolkienian tradition are super-warriors. Elves of Magic: The Gathering are mostly known to be... mystical gardeners or something.
There was a Bad Moon Rising vintage tournament last Wednesday (08Oct).
Yeah the hatred for elves goes a lot deeper than just a few years of the apocalypse. We are talking way before Ezuri was even a twinkle in some degenerate's evil eye.
I miss casting Deranged Hermits and such just because its too boring to consider the "better" elves and no point in considering the less efficient.
Yeah, but we're talking of different things. You're criticizing the player's approach that uses Deadeye Navigator (to keep using it as the one example at hand) to try and win through the same, deadliest Deadeye Navigator combos.
Whereas I'm criticizing the manager's approach that assumes Deadeye Navigator is (relatively) harmless because the deadliest Deadeye Navigator combos won't be used.
Yours is a fair criticism that I can't help but share, considering I banned Deadeye Navigator in my event because it had become out of control and dead-ended (no pun intended) and unfun and terminally uncreative.
My criticism is about methodology. It's about the correct principle of testing anything, really: you have to do it in extreme conditions, not in safe conditions. It's the same for V4: they test the interface with accounts that have 20 buddies, 10 decks, and 500 cards. And yup, it works pretty well under those conditions. Too bad there's people in the real world that have 500 buddies, 300 decks and 50k cards. So the interface collapses. Had they collected some real world data first, they would have known that they had to be sure the interface worked with 3000 buddies, 1000 decks and 500k cards.
The car metaphor also speaks to this: the speed limits exist because they know how fast a car goes, and they correctly assume people will try and use that full speed if not somehow prevented. But if they don't test the car at full speed, they won't know. They have to test it at full speed to make it safe, as opposed to assume that everyone will use the car responsibly because everybody likes to take it easy and drive at a leisurely pace. Any assumption that discounts basic human psychology is doomed to fail.
You even namecheck more Elvish archetypes than it's due, Paul: I wish we'd see Infect Elves or Warrior Elves in TribAp sometimes. Alas, it's 99% Elfball/ramp Elves with some random endgame that can range from Ezuri to whatever. Given that Elves generate nearly infinite mana in a bad day, it's just a matter of either watch them build the win, or sweep the board before that and they lose (because they are forced to go all-in with their ramp strategy). Either way, it's rarely an interesting game.
I'm also saddened because as a green player, I'd like to build ramp decks, and I do, but there's always that bitter awareness that whatever I try to do, an Elf deck would do it better. And then maybe I think, "I could build an Elf ramp with an elaborate endgame." But what's the point? It would just play like any other Elf ramp and then do something strange at the end, assuming the opponent would actually stay and watch rather than concede.
But it's not the poor Elves' fault — if anything, R&D could have dialed down the ramp a little over the years, rather than constantly double down on it: was Elvish Archdruid really necessary? Was Heritage Druid really necessary? Did they really think Ezuri was a good design? Next time, they might just do an Elf that says, "20: You win the game", so it'll spare us the wait for more clicking.
The Elf tribe has great stuff. Some truly great cards are only incidentally Elves, like Momir or Deathrite Shaman. And who doesn't love Elvish Aberration?
That makes more sense, it is just that there are some many things you can do with elves, it makes it hard for me not to love them.
Scion you may not have had much interaction with AJ but I have. Let me tell you, AJ is a huge fan of MTG and also hates elves. Not all elves (though his statement above seems to contradict that) but all the elves that ruined them for people who used to love them (like me.)
Once you have seen the Nth iteration/variation of stompy elves, elves guised as druids, elves guised as warriors, combo elves, Elf infect, etc they start to blur and when they start to become ubiquitous (every newb gravitates to them and goblins initially and they are the easy button tribe of choice amongst budget players) they cease to be adorable green men/women and become that hated monotonous source of uncreativity that is choking the very life out of the game.
I don't feel quite as strongly and some elves are near and dear to my heart (including the fan favorite berserker) but I empathize.
I LOVE elves, I want to vote for them all. I've never seen an elf deck I didn't want to play, hexproof: sure, infect: yes please, cascade: umm best haste creature ever according to Channelfireball. I don't see how AJ can claim to be a fan of magic and not love the little green men from the woods.
All my votes to Glissa the Traitor and Jarad, because the only good elf is a dead elf. ;)
I think you have Mutavault in the wrong block.
The solution seems obvious.
2 lists: one for Commander, the Bloodsoaked Venture into Grisly Horror movies. And one for Commander, the fluffy teddy bear syndrome.
Here is where we disagree to some extent in that it isn't dumbing anything down to not to exploit an already known exploit. I hate that kind of thinking that puts things in boxes and packages them neatly. If I come up with a cool johnny combo I don't want to have to repeat it a billion times just because it is cool and the most efficient way to build. Efficiency kills creativity to some extent. Sometimes you have to be willing to use sub par cards/interactions if you want to see what's on the other side of "What if?"
Also an aside to your analogy: Sure going 100mi an hour will get you there faster but you might hit a few old ladies and kids on the way home. There is a REASON for speed limits. :p
Chord of calling into hornet nest vs a stalled board, then anger of the gods. :D Not earthquake but it works. Also chord of calling is the usual method for generating Hornet tokens ala Queen too but occasionally creature ramp (elf, caryatid) works as well.
Thanks, Paul.
You do Hornet Queen into Purphoros in Standard? With creature ramp?
What's the other trick? Hornet Nest something?
I see your point and your reasoning. It's a fair comment. The question is, do we want to see what they'd do to the banned list in the name of keeping it casual if we give them the competitive data to work with? My thought is both parties would walk away unhappy from that.
In the video Pardee posted on YouTube, he played zero decks that want to interact with their opponent, twice vs Affinity, Loam Assult, and Hexproof. Yes it is important to note that the deck can go off turn two/three, but Goryo's Vengeance can win turn two without interaction, storm can win turn three without interaction. I think over time people learn how to play against the deck, people figure out what to IOK and Thoughtseize from hands and hold counters at the right time and the deck will fall to be just like storm, only the best pilots with the deck will do well, ie Finkel with storm.
Minor correction: Voltaic Key is no longer restricted, but most decks (other than Tezzerator variants) only play 1 anyway.
Good article