Pete says at the top that only 250 of 325 is spoiled and the remaining 75 will be spoiled June 6th.
There very well could be port and wasteland in those 75. I'm not jumping ton conclusions until the whole set has been released.
I will say if I pay $7 for a pack and pull a fudgin' Jareth as my rare I'm gonna be cheesed. Also the skull clamp previewed has the VM logo and I noticed it is mythic?? It jumps two rarities? Again gonna be peeved if I pull a 37 cent mythic out of a seven dollar pack.
Not finding this format very fun to deckbuild with - not many attacking plants, especially surviving copious amounts of removal, thus quirky or unrelated combo finishes only. Plants should have been given Fungus and Treefolk cards too, in my opinion. Oh well.
Vintage online will still be a niche format, but it's going to completely change the landscape of the format. Currently people who own those $20,000 paper Vintage decks might get to play them a couple times a month at most. And then only if they live the Northeast United States or in Europe. And the types of decks they are facing is not a complete metagame. It's 8 or 12 other guys who bring the same thing every time and don't actually own all the cards they need. (This is all a gross simplification from anecdotes I've read on message boards.)
But changing that to a way for people to play opponents world wide 24/7 will change the Vintage meta ridiculously fast. As a percentage of online play though, it will still be pretty niche because it has a high cost barrier to entry and high learning curve. If you're into competitive eternal, the next year is going to be amazing. If not, well you might draft a money card or two in VMA and move on.
Sorry for you casual room folks - you can only play one Ponder now. Maybe switch to casual legacy? Then you can't play Sol Ring. No way to win!
I did have a question to go along with this article. The "Archetype Speed" section is new. Did you like it? Did the charts make sense? How could I improve it?
I personally think there's not a chance in hell Vintage will play out online much differently than it does in the paper world. It's for hardcore enthusiasts only. They might manage to lure a bigger crowd here because Black Lotus won't cost $5k. (I can't even start predicting how much it will cost, but I see the figures Pete is using in his examples are still totally incompatible with 99.5% of the MTGO users). But Legacy will still be the eternal format of choice for events using a pool larger than Modern. (It's right there in the name.)
It's a matter of gameplay, too. Let's be honest, Black Lotus isn't a card. It's a mistake. It stems from a time when the game design was still a rough approximation with not enough data to predict the interactions of such a card over time, in a competitive environment. Black Lotus and co. shouldn't exist. It's cool that there's still a format where you can play with one copy of them (if you just try and play with more, the game itself ceases to make any sense.) But it's not a format they can push too much, organized play-wise, because it's still the format where you play with the cards that were made by mistake, so essentially the cards "you shouldn't play with".
Plus, yeah, you can buy a car with one of those Vintage paper decks. A sport car. Online, we'll see. A scooter, maybe?
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't Legacy only spring in to existence as a format because people wanted to play without needing to spend a used cars worth of money on the most broken cards?
Given that they intent to push Vintage online where that's not really as much of an issue, isn't there some chance that they don't intend to continue heavily supporting Legacy as a format online in the long run? I'm not talking about stopping all +EV events (though they did just that for pauper when they thought it was getting too much focus), but it doesn't seem like something they would be bothering to make another online only set for.
I have a theory on the reason why cards like Wasteland, Rishadan Port and Misdirection have been left out of Vintage Masters.
We know Vintage Masters's main rule was "cards not legal in Modern". But I believe (and maybe someone at Wizards even said it out loud, on one of the two hundred different media outlets they use) that Vintage Masters had a secondary rule: "cards not legal in Legacy". In fact, almost the entire Legacy ban list is in Vintage Masters.
Now, the above-mentioned cards are played in Vintage as well, but they are Legacy staples for sure. Say they want to do a Legacy Masters set next year. They had to save something juicy for that occasion. So now they focused on what only a set named Vintage Masters can host (plus the Conspiracy burden that has an entirely different genesis). Next year, we'll get a new draftable set of online reprints, and that'll be the occasion to revisit everything that Vintage Masters left out.
Of course, one year from now, Wasteland may have easily become the most ridiculous anomaly this game ever had.
Everything not in that list is legal. No last minute bans (I was rightfully criticized last time when I banned Wasteland in Kaleidoscope the day before the event).
Compost doesn't seem a problem to me. We just want to avoid easy locks (you can still build a prison deck as you always can in Legacy, we're just not going to provide the easier routes). Meta-based card advantage is okay.
Dystopia is a strong card in the meta, but it has a cumulative upkeep. And against a deck that's allowed to run Avenger of Zendikar and can easily ramp into it, wouldn't Damnation be the better choice? Anyway, it balances the Plant's access to Elephant Grass.
Swords of X and Y. They're in. Be prepared to kill them on sight, as usual. Both the tribes are Golgari-based, so I assume Abrupt Decay will run rampant. Also, outside-the-box thinking suggests going mono-blue Zombie, screwing all the meta predictions. :)
The format has not been kind to me either. Reading the signals in the Journey pack has been very hard. Hopefully I'm getting better at it... Cheers and thanks for the comment!
The full Vintage Masters spoiler is now up, and I was really surprised at how much garbage is in the set. Modern Masters worked so well as a limited format because, in part, it provided an all-star lineup of draft archetypes from a period in magic where limited formats had very strongly established and clear themes. The older sets that VM is drawing from were much less well developed in terms of archetypes and themes, which leads me to believe that the set will be nowhere near as accessible to draft as MM was.
The other major disappointment with the complete spoiler is the lost opportunity to reprint Wasteland and a number of hard-to-get Masques Block cards like Rishadan Port and Misdirection. Unless Wizards does something about this it's going to be very difficult for Vintage to succeed as a format. As of this morning I couldn't find any Wastelands available on MTGO -- I checked cardbot and mtgotraders along with a general search of the trading area. I find it stunning that Wizards had the guts to reprint Force of Will at rare (a great move imo) but lacked the foresight to reprint Wasteland at all.
I also want to thank you for highlighting the drop in prize support for Sealed Swiss and 64 Player Drafts which were inexplicably cut. It would be a good public service if you highlighted this more aggressively in your posts up to the release date. Sealed Swiss was cut by 33% and 64 man drafts by about half. I crunched the numbers and the prize support (as a ratio of cost to enter to prize) is stunning. The 64 man draft PEs have markedly worse prize support than normal draft queues! A lot of players are going to get suckered into this early on thinking that there will be normal prize support, and you could do a lot for the community by ensuring that as many people as possible know what's up and don't get tricked.
I haven't played much with the Junk Rares, definitely not enough to know for sure. Chapin seemed to think it was a good matchup. I can see getting the BUG deck to a low life total and finishing the job with a Silence the Believers on Prognostic Sphinx to get those last few points in.
I would not, discount the BUG Control deck, though. I don't think the CFB came to the same conclusion by accident!
Either way, as more people pick up Junk Rares on MTGO, I think we'll have our answer shortly!
All creatures gain protection from red? :)
I take it you meant Absolute Grace. But I don't find it problematic. It should be used by Plants, but they'll likely use black creatures as well, and their Walls already block most Zombies without requiring protection. It's a strong card, but I'd personally run removal in that slot.
The irony is many of the best plants are zombies.
If you go and count the cards on the spoiler page, you'll see that all 325 are there.
Current VM image gallery shows all the 325 cards at mothership, there is no chance for wasteland here, maybe we will see it as upcoming MOCS Promo.
Pete says at the top that only 250 of 325 is spoiled and the remaining 75 will be spoiled June 6th.
There very well could be port and wasteland in those 75. I'm not jumping ton conclusions until the whole set has been released.
I will say if I pay $7 for a pack and pull a fudgin' Jareth as my rare I'm gonna be cheesed. Also the skull clamp previewed has the VM logo and I noticed it is mythic?? It jumps two rarities? Again gonna be peeved if I pull a 37 cent mythic out of a seven dollar pack.
Not finding this format very fun to deckbuild with - not many attacking plants, especially surviving copious amounts of removal, thus quirky or unrelated combo finishes only. Plants should have been given Fungus and Treefolk cards too, in my opinion. Oh well.
Vintage online will still be a niche format, but it's going to completely change the landscape of the format. Currently people who own those $20,000 paper Vintage decks might get to play them a couple times a month at most. And then only if they live the Northeast United States or in Europe. And the types of decks they are facing is not a complete metagame. It's 8 or 12 other guys who bring the same thing every time and don't actually own all the cards they need. (This is all a gross simplification from anecdotes I've read on message boards.)
But changing that to a way for people to play opponents world wide 24/7 will change the Vintage meta ridiculously fast. As a percentage of online play though, it will still be pretty niche because it has a high cost barrier to entry and high learning curve. If you're into competitive eternal, the next year is going to be amazing. If not, well you might draft a money card or two in VMA and move on.
Sorry for you casual room folks - you can only play one Ponder now. Maybe switch to casual legacy? Then you can't play Sol Ring. No way to win!
I did have a question to go along with this article. The "Archetype Speed" section is new. Did you like it? Did the charts make sense? How could I improve it?
I personally think there's not a chance in hell Vintage will play out online much differently than it does in the paper world. It's for hardcore enthusiasts only. They might manage to lure a bigger crowd here because Black Lotus won't cost $5k. (I can't even start predicting how much it will cost, but I see the figures Pete is using in his examples are still totally incompatible with 99.5% of the MTGO users). But Legacy will still be the eternal format of choice for events using a pool larger than Modern. (It's right there in the name.)
It's a matter of gameplay, too. Let's be honest, Black Lotus isn't a card. It's a mistake. It stems from a time when the game design was still a rough approximation with not enough data to predict the interactions of such a card over time, in a competitive environment. Black Lotus and co. shouldn't exist. It's cool that there's still a format where you can play with one copy of them (if you just try and play with more, the game itself ceases to make any sense.) But it's not a format they can push too much, organized play-wise, because it's still the format where you play with the cards that were made by mistake, so essentially the cards "you shouldn't play with".
Plus, yeah, you can buy a car with one of those Vintage paper decks. A sport car. Online, we'll see. A scooter, maybe?
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't Legacy only spring in to existence as a format because people wanted to play without needing to spend a used cars worth of money on the most broken cards?
Given that they intent to push Vintage online where that's not really as much of an issue, isn't there some chance that they don't intend to continue heavily supporting Legacy as a format online in the long run? I'm not talking about stopping all +EV events (though they did just that for pauper when they thought it was getting too much focus), but it doesn't seem like something they would be bothering to make another online only set for.
Sure, but it would still be an uncommon that cost more than Black Lotus. :)
I have a theory on the reason why cards like Wasteland, Rishadan Port and Misdirection have been left out of Vintage Masters.
We know Vintage Masters's main rule was "cards not legal in Modern". But I believe (and maybe someone at Wizards even said it out loud, on one of the two hundred different media outlets they use) that Vintage Masters had a secondary rule: "cards not legal in Legacy". In fact, almost the entire Legacy ban list is in Vintage Masters.
Now, the above-mentioned cards are played in Vintage as well, but they are Legacy staples for sure. Say they want to do a Legacy Masters set next year. They had to save something juicy for that occasion. So now they focused on what only a set named Vintage Masters can host (plus the Conspiracy burden that has an entirely different genesis). Next year, we'll get a new draftable set of online reprints, and that'll be the occasion to revisit everything that Vintage Masters left out.
Of course, one year from now, Wasteland may have easily become the most ridiculous anomaly this game ever had.
* an uncommon in a set that wasn't widely printed and was only played by diehards.
Everything not in that list is legal. No last minute bans (I was rightfully criticized last time when I banned Wasteland in Kaleidoscope the day before the event).
Compost doesn't seem a problem to me. We just want to avoid easy locks (you can still build a prison deck as you always can in Legacy, we're just not going to provide the easier routes). Meta-based card advantage is okay.
Dystopia is a strong card in the meta, but it has a cumulative upkeep. And against a deck that's allowed to run Avenger of Zendikar and can easily ramp into it, wouldn't Damnation be the better choice? Anyway, it balances the Plant's access to Elephant Grass.
Swords of X and Y. They're in. Be prepared to kill them on sight, as usual. Both the tribes are Golgari-based, so I assume Abrupt Decay will run rampant. Also, outside-the-box thinking suggests going mono-blue Zombie, screwing all the meta predictions. :)
The format has not been kind to me either. Reading the signals in the Journey pack has been very hard. Hopefully I'm getting better at it... Cheers and thanks for the comment!
Yeah, but I think his point was that that should have been an expected outcome, and therefore influenced the decision to reprint or not.
On the other hand, it would be amusing if an uncommon became the most expensive card on MTGO.
They specifically went up BECAUSE they're not reprinting it.
wastelands went up ~$30 last night. how can they not reprint it?
The full Vintage Masters spoiler is now up, and I was really surprised at how much garbage is in the set. Modern Masters worked so well as a limited format because, in part, it provided an all-star lineup of draft archetypes from a period in magic where limited formats had very strongly established and clear themes. The older sets that VM is drawing from were much less well developed in terms of archetypes and themes, which leads me to believe that the set will be nowhere near as accessible to draft as MM was.
The other major disappointment with the complete spoiler is the lost opportunity to reprint Wasteland and a number of hard-to-get Masques Block cards like Rishadan Port and Misdirection. Unless Wizards does something about this it's going to be very difficult for Vintage to succeed as a format. As of this morning I couldn't find any Wastelands available on MTGO -- I checked cardbot and mtgotraders along with a general search of the trading area. I find it stunning that Wizards had the guts to reprint Force of Will at rare (a great move imo) but lacked the foresight to reprint Wasteland at all.
I also want to thank you for highlighting the drop in prize support for Sealed Swiss and 64 Player Drafts which were inexplicably cut. It would be a good public service if you highlighted this more aggressively in your posts up to the release date. Sealed Swiss was cut by 33% and 64 man drafts by about half. I crunched the numbers and the prize support (as a ratio of cost to enter to prize) is stunning. The 64 man draft PEs have markedly worse prize support than normal draft queues! A lot of players are going to get suckered into this early on thinking that there will be normal prize support, and you could do a lot for the community by ensuring that as many people as possible know what's up and don't get tricked.
A thought: The swords of X and Y would be insanely powerful here. At the very least, Feast and Famine would be a problem.
So Dystopia and Compost are both legal?
I haven't played much with the Junk Rares, definitely not enough to know for sure. Chapin seemed to think it was a good matchup. I can see getting the BUG deck to a low life total and finishing the job with a Silence the Believers on Prognostic Sphinx to get those last few points in.
I would not, discount the BUG Control deck, though. I don't think the CFB came to the same conclusion by accident!
Either way, as more people pick up Junk Rares on MTGO, I think we'll have our answer shortly!
Thanks for the correction. That's the one I meant.
It may just be a "win more" card. But it seems like it's a little stronger than just allowing your blockers to survive.
All creatures gain protection from red? :)
I take it you meant Absolute Grace. But I don't find it problematic. It should be used by Plants, but they'll likely use black creatures as well, and their Walls already block most Zombies without requiring protection. It's a strong card, but I'd personally run removal in that slot.
Should Absolute Law be on the banned list for this week's event?
Probably. :)