For my 15 I just won a bunch of drafts and a few 8-man standard queues. Since you get 1 QP for even making the finals in a standard 8man right now (spent ~60 tix to make mono-blue devotion), that helped. I'd say I got 4 from 8-mans, 4 from flashback drafts, and 7 from theros (usually 8-4). I found it easier to get points on the weekends than on weekday nights, maybe because more people were on. Most of the time I couldn't play scheduled events because I was only playing at night, after dinner, before bed. This is enough time for two fast or one slow drafts. I tried to hit 8-4 when I could because those events are faster than swiss and players don't generally read the cards while drafting.
I probably spent about 130 tix actually entering events with though. To finance this I sold my LED from last month, the flashback packs I won on Monday before the week ended (got a lot for LLM's and Mirage), and most of my draft rares. I began the run with 15 tix, 3 packs (ths/bng) and ended the run with 2 tix 8 packs (ths/bng). I also took Tuesday the 29th off just to get my last 2 QP; perhaps not the best decision, but I felt too committed to quit at that point.
The swords are more expensive than something niche and underplayed would be. Why should we give people a higher financial burden to compete? You'd need to win several events outright to get the price of just one sword.
The other problem is the swords can be used equally regardless of how underpowered or overpowered a given tribe is. They don't help the underpowered tribes for exactly the same reason that Aether Vial doesn't. The more powerful a tribe, the greater its superiority when additional power is made available to everyone.
Unban the swords please. helps with the underpowered tribes so we don't need to buy a slew of weird-ass cards just to win an event and see yourself locked out from using that tribe for the next 6 weeks.
I.e. banning swords means we need to find other ways to power those less used tribes. and frankly it isn't economical to buy those niche cards just to win a tix or two.
"Do you want the Swords and Batterskull back in Underdog and Pure events?"
Answer YES if you want for them to be unbanned, or NO if you want for them to remain banned.
(If they'll be unbanned, Stoneforge Mystic will be back to be playable only in Kor and Artificer decks).
Majority of 30 votes needed before a decision will be taken. Current tally:
YES, unban the Swords: mihahitlor, RexDart, Lord Erman, ML_Berlin
TOTAL: 4
NO, keep the Swords banned: Ben Bentrup, Kenny Fromm Jr, Denis Bokach, AJ_Impy, romellos,
TOTAL: 5
I literally ran 0 BNG cards in my pre release deck at the LSG last weekend.
I think Journey is going to spike things up a lot.
Last year, it was important to cut your guild/shard in the Dragon's Maze pack so that you could get rewarded in the Gatecrash pack. This year I think it'll be more important to properly read signals in the Journey pack so that you can be rewarded in the Theros pack.
I know it is just me, but I just don't care much about ajani's presence. It is a fine card, but I still would rather have swift justice personally. I just think I prefer the life gain chunk to the more consistent creature survival, and I don't think the strive will be relevant that often. I am keeping an open mind about it though, and if it shines in the regular drafts I play I may change my mind.
I am not sure how much Blue control is relevant in your cube, but it seems to me you missed on the two best potential cards for it in your review.
Sigiled Stafish has a lot of potential. Early blue defensive creatures are need by control to blunt aggro. Star fish serves this purpose, and can smooth your draws every turn. If it's body were 0/4 or 1/3 it would be an easy inclusion for me. Still at 0/3 I will give it a chance and see how it does.
I really think you missed the boat on on Hour of Need. IMO it is the most interesting and potentially powerful Peasent card in the whole set. First off like you said it will almost never be pointed at your opponents creature, it is in no way a removal card. It is a blue finisher supreme. Being able to EOT sphinx up 2 or 3 random durdles and swing for 8 to 12 in the air in your turn is amazing, and plays right into what a controlling blue deck is trying to do. Not to mention just blowing out an opponent on their attack by making you smaller dudes, or tapped dudes into sphinxes then blocking. You say this can blow up in your face, but I am not sure how. The chance of being blown out you self are relatively low, and can be mitigated, and casting it with multiple targets makes it extremely difficult to be blown out. I think the card is an all star.
I agree, standard is very boring right now. I haven't even played in 3 weeks. To be honest, I'm not too impressed by the new set either. Any other format requires too much investment to be competitive. I'm hoping I don't wind up taking a 3 month hiatus, but it might look that way. Any the unfortunate thing is I always find the annual set very lame too.
Something rather important to note about the pre-releases and release events - the payouts have changed. 8-4 pre-release drafts are now 9-4. The release events pay out in all 3 sets of the block, not all JOU (except triple JOU, which understandably gives only JOU)
Yeah I was a fan boy of the first two Ham on Wry (and donated to support it) but like many things that become rote it seems less exciting this year and I am not a donor, nor do I have plans to play in it. Partially I am somewhat disinterested in MTGO in general because of all the crap that has been thrown at us by WOTC (unapologetically I might add, for the most part.) And partially because I feel that I am done actively grieving for Eric and while I still miss him and wish he had not exited stage left I have trouble rallying zest for a celebration at which he is not in attendance for a game I am not loving as much as I once did. And to be perfectly frank: Classic is even less my cup of tea now than it was 2 years ago, when I had to borrow most of a deck to participate.
I considered what I could bring this year without borrowing and the answer is: Nothing. Were the format Modern I think I have a couple of decent ideas waiting to be executed but Classic is passe for me. (Sorry Whiffy and Co.)
Just a general note to readers: I'm aware that there are a couple cards that were either misspelled or short handed (ie. bw temple). I apologize if these cause any inconvenience; these deck lists were copied straight over from my notes and I didn't have enough time to proofread as much as usually do. I hope you enjoy the article!
I really do not understand why the swords are in the same'pool' as Batterskull!
The ability of being returned back to hand counters all usal artifact destroying or even exile effects vs Batterskull. Even better as indestructable, because it prevents enchantments ,too.
The Swords are just normal equipments, powerful in their effect but vulnerable to ALL artifact destroying effects, there a dozens of critters who have that by entrance,sacrifice or abilty,besides the obvious spells, and mass destroyers like Nyrhill's(?) Disk, who destroys all artifacts,critters and enchantments.
THe only way to eliminate the Batterskull is having 2 artifact destroying spells on hand,and play the 2nd one after he wants to take it back on hand. And that is rather rare in a Tribal setting unless u really flooding your deck with it,...because of Batterskulls.
Swords unbanned doesnt change much in deck design for anybody.If you design your tribal decks,you decide if u put in anti-artifact effects. And if you decided yes, the swords are just normal artifacts and will be destroyed like any other.
To effectivley kill Batterskull u need 8 anti-artifact effects at least in deck, or even more.
If he uses 4 batterskull,almost half your cards needs to be artifact destroying.
I know there are other ways, like deck searching, but should the focuss in Apocalypse deck building really switch so much to an off-tribe critter which can be used in any deck?
A few elements to better understand the principles that inform my banning policies (others should already know it because I repeat them ad nauseam, but you've only recently come back).
1. It's never about the power level. It's about a combination of frequency AND annoyance. If a card is annoying but it appears about once per year, it won't be banned (e.g. Aluren). If a card appears every single week but it's just a tool, it won't be banned (e.g. Damnation).
2. No card ever NEEDS to be banned. The only exceptions are cards that were clearly the product of design mistakes, like Skullclamp or Big Jace in Standard.
3. A card's power level is not an absolute. Among the few cards we ban, there are some that just warp Tribal Wars because it's Tribal Wars (e.g. Glimpse of Nature).
4. The fewer cards you ban, the better.
In short, I do what Modern does. Bans are decided based on warped metas. Bans are never final. Bans don't try to "fix" the format, they try to fix the current meta. It's not an exact science.
Moat is a ridiculous ban. We would have never banned it. It's the proof DCI doesn't know what the Tribal Wars format is anymore, nor care to know.
And make no mistake, Tribal Apocalypse is for Spikes. First and foremost, because it's a tournament. Tournaments are for Spikes. And yet Spikes need rules. Because they're Spikes.
Just because something is hard to deal with doesn't mean it should be banned. In that case, why not ban all the hexproof creatures? Why not ban creatures with protection from creatures? It's a creature based format after all! Or why not ban that protection from you merfolk?
If you're playing a mono colored deck, you KNOW you will have some problems against certain cards. Mono Black can't deal with artifacts nor with enchantments, so if your opponent is playing an enchantress deck, you're pretty much screwed. You KNOW this before entering the tournament.
Oh and that "we don't have sideboards" is not an excuse. This is the nature of the beast. This is why playing artifacts and/or enchantments in this format has ALWAYS been powerful.
You just can't ban something because people don't pack proper cards to deal with non-creature permanents in their decks. If swords get banned, then what's the next step; ban all artifacts? Ban all enchantments?
Look, I know that the Johnny & Timmy participants of this event like to see lots of fun red zone actions in this tournament. I know that they pretty much hate powerful offtribe creatures. I know they'd like to see interesting tribes being played instead of just elves, goblins and humans. Like Antelopes vs Serpents on one table and Nomads vs Horses on the other and so on. I know these.
But believe me; as long as you don't ban Spikes from this tournament, that will NEVER happen. If swords get banned, someone will probably start annoying people with powerful enchantments until they get banned.
So, banning something just because it's hard to deal with, will only lead people to laziness in deck building. Artifacts, be it an equipment or not, have always been hard to deal with in the format. And there is no difference in my opinion between a sword and, say, Basalt Monolith. The cards to remove them both are completely the same.
Bottom line: I never support the decision to ban anything unless is completely stalls the format. In that sense, I never understood and supported the banning of Moat either. Not packing non-creature removal is a risky decision and sometimes it pays off not to dedicate those precious slots to such cards, but sometimes you hit hard to a wall and get slaughtered.
Again, this is the nature of the beast.
/endrant
PS: I'm not participating regularly in the events, so do not take my opinions too serious. At the end, those who regularly attend know it better than me.
As you know you get mad respect from me and we largely agree on these points however it is a terrible idea to ban what we find distasteful. Just as I opposed Moat being banned (and WOTC never did see fit to explain that one) I am somewhat opposed to banning swords willy nilly. Restricting them makes more sense to me. OTOH if Batterskull is banned I won't blink.
Thanks Judas!
I think mine went like this, across 2 accounts:
9 from cube last month.
2 from phantom sealed
4 from pauper 8mans (MBC mostly)
Account 2
13 or 14 from pauper 8mans (4 MBC, 9-10 on MGA)
1 or 2 from cube this month.
For my 15 I just won a bunch of drafts and a few 8-man standard queues. Since you get 1 QP for even making the finals in a standard 8man right now (spent ~60 tix to make mono-blue devotion), that helped. I'd say I got 4 from 8-mans, 4 from flashback drafts, and 7 from theros (usually 8-4). I found it easier to get points on the weekends than on weekday nights, maybe because more people were on. Most of the time I couldn't play scheduled events because I was only playing at night, after dinner, before bed. This is enough time for two fast or one slow drafts. I tried to hit 8-4 when I could because those events are faster than swiss and players don't generally read the cards while drafting.
I probably spent about 130 tix actually entering events with though. To finance this I sold my LED from last month, the flashback packs I won on Monday before the week ended (got a lot for LLM's and Mirage), and most of my draft rares. I began the run with 15 tix, 3 packs (ths/bng) and ended the run with 2 tix 8 packs (ths/bng). I also took Tuesday the 29th off just to get my last 2 QP; perhaps not the best decision, but I felt too committed to quit at that point.
NO NO NO
The swords are more expensive than something niche and underplayed would be. Why should we give people a higher financial burden to compete? You'd need to win several events outright to get the price of just one sword.
The other problem is the swords can be used equally regardless of how underpowered or overpowered a given tribe is. They don't help the underpowered tribes for exactly the same reason that Aether Vial doesn't. The more powerful a tribe, the greater its superiority when additional power is made available to everyone.
Unban the swords please. helps with the underpowered tribes so we don't need to buy a slew of weird-ass cards just to win an event and see yourself locked out from using that tribe for the next 6 weeks.
I.e. banning swords means we need to find other ways to power those less used tribes. and frankly it isn't economical to buy those niche cards just to win a tix or two.
"Do you want the Swords and Batterskull back in Underdog and Pure events?"
Answer YES if you want for them to be unbanned, or NO if you want for them to remain banned.
(If they'll be unbanned, Stoneforge Mystic will be back to be playable only in Kor and Artificer decks).
Majority of 30 votes needed before a decision will be taken. Current tally:
YES, unban the Swords: mihahitlor, RexDart, Lord Erman, ML_Berlin
TOTAL: 4
NO, keep the Swords banned: Ben Bentrup, Kenny Fromm Jr, Denis Bokach, AJ_Impy, romellos,
TOTAL: 5
Abstained: Winter.Wolf
TOTAL: 1
TOTAL VOTES: 10
I am with you on the unplayables.
I literally ran 0 BNG cards in my pre release deck at the LSG last weekend.
I think Journey is going to spike things up a lot.
Last year, it was important to cut your guild/shard in the Dragon's Maze pack so that you could get rewarded in the Gatecrash pack. This year I think it'll be more important to properly read signals in the Journey pack so that you can be rewarded in the Theros pack.
I know it is just me, but I just don't care much about ajani's presence. It is a fine card, but I still would rather have swift justice personally. I just think I prefer the life gain chunk to the more consistent creature survival, and I don't think the strive will be relevant that often. I am keeping an open mind about it though, and if it shines in the regular drafts I play I may change my mind.
I am not sure how much Blue control is relevant in your cube, but it seems to me you missed on the two best potential cards for it in your review.
Sigiled Stafish has a lot of potential. Early blue defensive creatures are need by control to blunt aggro. Star fish serves this purpose, and can smooth your draws every turn. If it's body were 0/4 or 1/3 it would be an easy inclusion for me. Still at 0/3 I will give it a chance and see how it does.
I really think you missed the boat on on Hour of Need. IMO it is the most interesting and potentially powerful Peasent card in the whole set. First off like you said it will almost never be pointed at your opponents creature, it is in no way a removal card. It is a blue finisher supreme. Being able to EOT sphinx up 2 or 3 random durdles and swing for 8 to 12 in the air in your turn is amazing, and plays right into what a controlling blue deck is trying to do. Not to mention just blowing out an opponent on their attack by making you smaller dudes, or tapped dudes into sphinxes then blocking. You say this can blow up in your face, but I am not sure how. The chance of being blown out you self are relatively low, and can be mitigated, and casting it with multiple targets makes it extremely difficult to be blown out. I think the card is an all star.
Thanks for the comments guys, and good point on Thaumaturge Richard, seems like it could be good in UR.
I agree, standard is very boring right now. I haven't even played in 3 weeks. To be honest, I'm not too impressed by the new set either. Any other format requires too much investment to be competitive. I'm hoping I don't wind up taking a 3 month hiatus, but it might look that way. Any the unfortunate thing is I always find the annual set very lame too.
Well, update already: Archetype and Goblin Warchief issues both solved on Gatherling.
Something rather important to note about the pre-releases and release events - the payouts have changed. 8-4 pre-release drafts are now 9-4. The release events pay out in all 3 sets of the block, not all JOU (except triple JOU, which understandably gives only JOU)
Well that's something :)
Tribal Wars are back.
RE: The doldrums and other irritants...
Yeah I was a fan boy of the first two Ham on Wry (and donated to support it) but like many things that become rote it seems less exciting this year and I am not a donor, nor do I have plans to play in it. Partially I am somewhat disinterested in MTGO in general because of all the crap that has been thrown at us by WOTC (unapologetically I might add, for the most part.) And partially because I feel that I am done actively grieving for Eric and while I still miss him and wish he had not exited stage left I have trouble rallying zest for a celebration at which he is not in attendance for a game I am not loving as much as I once did. And to be perfectly frank: Classic is even less my cup of tea now than it was 2 years ago, when I had to borrow most of a deck to participate.
I considered what I could bring this year without borrowing and the answer is: Nothing. Were the format Modern I think I have a couple of decent ideas waiting to be executed but Classic is passe for me. (Sorry Whiffy and Co.)
Just a general note to readers: I'm aware that there are a couple cards that were either misspelled or short handed (ie. bw temple). I apologize if these cause any inconvenience; these deck lists were copied straight over from my notes and I didn't have enough time to proofread as much as usually do. I hope you enjoy the article!
I could see GW I guess - I have an unconscious habit of avoiding GW in sealed.
I actually quite liked this as a change of pace.
I think I would have liked G/W. Green seemed to have the best depth, and white was bomby.
Larry Niven's disk (aka Nevinyrral) (author of the Ring world series.) If you need a mnemonic for why it's spelled that way. :D
Pro Swords - No to Batterskull
I really do not understand why the swords are in the same'pool' as Batterskull!
The ability of being returned back to hand counters all usal artifact destroying or even exile effects vs Batterskull. Even better as indestructable, because it prevents enchantments ,too.
The Swords are just normal equipments, powerful in their effect but vulnerable to ALL artifact destroying effects, there a dozens of critters who have that by entrance,sacrifice or abilty,besides the obvious spells, and mass destroyers like Nyrhill's(?) Disk, who destroys all artifacts,critters and enchantments.
THe only way to eliminate the Batterskull is having 2 artifact destroying spells on hand,and play the 2nd one after he wants to take it back on hand. And that is rather rare in a Tribal setting unless u really flooding your deck with it,...because of Batterskulls.
Swords unbanned doesnt change much in deck design for anybody.If you design your tribal decks,you decide if u put in anti-artifact effects. And if you decided yes, the swords are just normal artifacts and will be destroyed like any other.
To effectivley kill Batterskull u need 8 anti-artifact effects at least in deck, or even more.
If he uses 4 batterskull,almost half your cards needs to be artifact destroying.
I know there are other ways, like deck searching, but should the focuss in Apocalypse deck building really switch so much to an off-tribe critter which can be used in any deck?
Thanks guys, really appreciate the feedback as always. I'm working on the set review article now, we'll see how it goes :)
A few elements to better understand the principles that inform my banning policies (others should already know it because I repeat them ad nauseam, but you've only recently come back).
1. It's never about the power level. It's about a combination of frequency AND annoyance. If a card is annoying but it appears about once per year, it won't be banned (e.g. Aluren). If a card appears every single week but it's just a tool, it won't be banned (e.g. Damnation).
2. No card ever NEEDS to be banned. The only exceptions are cards that were clearly the product of design mistakes, like Skullclamp or Big Jace in Standard.
3. A card's power level is not an absolute. Among the few cards we ban, there are some that just warp Tribal Wars because it's Tribal Wars (e.g. Glimpse of Nature).
4. The fewer cards you ban, the better.
In short, I do what Modern does. Bans are decided based on warped metas. Bans are never final. Bans don't try to "fix" the format, they try to fix the current meta. It's not an exact science.
Moat is a ridiculous ban. We would have never banned it. It's the proof DCI doesn't know what the Tribal Wars format is anymore, nor care to know.
And make no mistake, Tribal Apocalypse is for Spikes. First and foremost, because it's a tournament. Tournaments are for Spikes. And yet Spikes need rules. Because they're Spikes.
Disclaimer: Below are my personal opinions.
Just because something is hard to deal with doesn't mean it should be banned. In that case, why not ban all the hexproof creatures? Why not ban creatures with protection from creatures? It's a creature based format after all! Or why not ban that protection from you merfolk?
If you're playing a mono colored deck, you KNOW you will have some problems against certain cards. Mono Black can't deal with artifacts nor with enchantments, so if your opponent is playing an enchantress deck, you're pretty much screwed. You KNOW this before entering the tournament.
Oh and that "we don't have sideboards" is not an excuse. This is the nature of the beast. This is why playing artifacts and/or enchantments in this format has ALWAYS been powerful.
You just can't ban something because people don't pack proper cards to deal with non-creature permanents in their decks. If swords get banned, then what's the next step; ban all artifacts? Ban all enchantments?
Look, I know that the Johnny & Timmy participants of this event like to see lots of fun red zone actions in this tournament. I know that they pretty much hate powerful offtribe creatures. I know they'd like to see interesting tribes being played instead of just elves, goblins and humans. Like Antelopes vs Serpents on one table and Nomads vs Horses on the other and so on. I know these.
But believe me; as long as you don't ban Spikes from this tournament, that will NEVER happen. If swords get banned, someone will probably start annoying people with powerful enchantments until they get banned.
So, banning something just because it's hard to deal with, will only lead people to laziness in deck building. Artifacts, be it an equipment or not, have always been hard to deal with in the format. And there is no difference in my opinion between a sword and, say, Basalt Monolith. The cards to remove them both are completely the same.
Bottom line: I never support the decision to ban anything unless is completely stalls the format. In that sense, I never understood and supported the banning of Moat either. Not packing non-creature removal is a risky decision and sometimes it pays off not to dedicate those precious slots to such cards, but sometimes you hit hard to a wall and get slaughtered.
Again, this is the nature of the beast.
/endrant
PS: I'm not participating regularly in the events, so do not take my opinions too serious. At the end, those who regularly attend know it better than me.
As you know you get mad respect from me and we largely agree on these points however it is a terrible idea to ban what we find distasteful. Just as I opposed Moat being banned (and WOTC never did see fit to explain that one) I am somewhat opposed to banning swords willy nilly. Restricting them makes more sense to me. OTOH if Batterskull is banned I won't blink.
Yeah, the prize payouts are too good! Not to mention the Limited Qualifiers are booked at least an hour in advance -_-