Hehe nice, though Id be careful of too many RTB since it can put you within lethal range at the wrong time vs some decks.
By the way I was tinkering with a build AJ_Impy made for Tribal Wars using Maze's End and came up with something somewhat fun (aMazing Elves) and interesting. Not as cool as his though: Mass Destroying/Exiling Humans + guildgates ftw.
The blind obidience has been in the deck since the article went up and the saruli gatekeepers are now 3x sideboard with 4 heroes reunion main, the extra life from blind obidience is huge, and tapped stormbreath dragons, hydras and whatnot too. Also i dropped the red, save for 4 gates and 2 perimeter and dipped into black, great minds think alike right paul?
The divination still wins matches, and a lack of targets for their removal is just gravy. Read the bones might be the next thing ill add, since i'd play 7 Divination if i could and RTB diggs even a little bit deeper.
"Wizards has to program Born of the Gods into Tribal. That has to be one of the most time-consuming tasks imaginable. Take the first card: make it legal in Legacy Tribal. Check that it works with both interfaces. Second card. Add it to the Humans tribe. Add it to the Clerics tribe. Make it work with both interfaces. Third card. Add it to the Humans tribe. Add it to the Shamans tribe. Make sure it works with both interfaces. Next card – and so on."
Uhm, I don't think that's the system. I know it's not in Gatherling, since I can peek behind the curtain there. I've no reason to think anything using a database (and Gatherling uses the WotC database!) works that way.
Here's how it works.
A card is entered in a database. It has fields. One of the field is the type "Creature". Another field is the subtype "Human". You have to fill every field in the card database regardless of the formats you're using, because the search filters need to find those fields upon request.
Now, there's your format. Your format says: "The deck is legal if 33% of the cards of the deck, rounded down, is a positive for the field Creature and shares at least one #keyword in the field Subtype." That's it. The format filter does the check against the database fields, not the other way around. And there's a ban list that says: "The deck is not legal if it features one of the following #cardnames". (I think DCI changed the Tribal Wars ban list only one in the last decade).
In Gatherling, once a new set comes, someone has to enter all the new cards in the card database with all their fields (they take those directly from Gatherer.com, I believe). A card doesn't have a field saying, "This is legal for Legacy Tribal Wars". It has a field saying, "This is a creature", and another saying, "This is a Human".
At that point, every PRE host has to update the list of allowed formats in their PREs. They go to "Format Editor", click "Born of the Gods", done. It takes about 10 seconds. If someone had to do it for every format and subformat in existence, that would take, let's say maybe 15 minutes? (I manage a dozen formats and subformats myself).
And this is just because Gatherling gives the hosts total control over what their events allow. It would be easy to have all the new sets (particularly the current block's sets that are legal in most formats) added by default to the card pool of every format, with the host of particular events required to go and exclude them. But it's safer the way it's done. (The hosts of Heirloom formats are probably the ones who have more work to do.)
I certainly don't run as much removal as your variant, but the removal I do run is probably key to the deck. While I do run 16 fogs, they are generally to fog the combat steps between board wipes.
If you look at my list, I run similar mass removal as your deck.
4x Supreme Verdict
2x Merciless Eviction
I run one less detention sphere at 3x, but I do run 2x Ratchet Bomb main and 2x in the side.
Maybe my build is different from other fog decks you have seen. Your removal spell count is higher at 20 (if you count both charms) but with me running 13 removal spells maindeck, I don't leave creatures on the board as much as you might think.
I do plan on running Kiora. I know Fog itself protects planeswalkers due to how it is worded. Kiora protects itself in some fashion as well.
thinking with a good draw you get underworld connections after perimeter or obedience and then two turns later gary. But as it turns out your opponent will a) concede to perimeter, b) kill you with weenies before you see 3 lands c) play one monster at a time when you draw all your removal and then kill you when you run out d) win while you pick off some of their creatures.
At no time will you a) draw the perfect hand, b) get an opponent who isn't playing aggro weenie burn of some kind, c) play gary to effect d) have a good/fun game.
But just to throw my two cents... I know I might be in the (vocal) minority here, but this talk of "too many options confuse players" really worries me about where MTGO is going. The coding of niche formats takes too much work that should be better spent somewhere else? There's a perfectly fine solution for it: make the game moddable. Let us create our own formats and make them client-enforceable, and let us share these formats in between us.
Every step MTGO takes is the direction of making it hard for us to play (casually) the way we'd like is a step that towards reinforcing online play as an impoverished version of paper play.
"Making Force of Will a MOCS promo also did very little to its long-term price."
True. Does somebody have any idea of the impact of these cards on the player base of legacy/classic formats ? It would be interesting to know.
Prices of Masques block staples are insane (400tix for ports playset is a joke), but maybe that vintage masters will correct that a bit.
Glad it's coming back, but still can't agree with Alison's reasoning on the format eliminations:
"newer players can be overwhelmed by the number of format choices, and this removal helps these players more easily find an experience that is right for them."
That goes to what I was saying. I don't think the core demographic of people who are attracted to Magic are paralyzed by choice. I'm sure their market research shows that some people are, but those people can stay nice and comfy in the little restricted cocoon of Duels of the Planeswalkers, and leave MTGO to people who don't flee in terror from having options. And "experience that is right for them"... interesting way of saying: casual players need to play only the formats that we sell pre-con decks for at the storefront.
The other point about building decks for a format and discovering that nobody plays it is more valid, BUT... I never would have discovered Legacy Tribal Wars if not for that very thing. I had a Goblin deck that wasn't quite up to snuff for real Legacy at the time, saw the "Tribal Wars" format in the pulldown menu and figured I'd give it a whirl. After a few casual matches somebody mentioned this tournament to me, and it took off from there. I brewed up a Barbarian deck and took it to the event and was hooked ever since -- despite the fact that somebody (I think it was NemesisParadigm or filebana) Show and Tell an Eldrazi on me my first time in the event.
So while I understand the logic of that point, playing a format really only takes a few people interested in it, and things can easily snowball from there will the help of PRE support. If the PRE scene wasn't so dominated by budget restrictions, K-scope might have gained some velocity and been saved too.
While Wizzos promising to bring back Tribal Wars does show a glimmer of hope, I'm not holding my breath. I'm convinced it's Leagues all over again. "It's coming." I'd love for Tribal Wars (and K-scope, too, for that matter!) to come back next downtime, but I don't believe it'll be any time soon. 2015 if we're damn lucky.
Joe Lossett (oarsman on mtgo) has been streaming a lot with Tezz Control in Legacy recently. Accordingly, I believe that a number of people are also buying Tezz for that deck.
I have seen a few others playing Tezz control as well, mostly since Joe started streaming it.
I'm sure you have experience in coding, so to say "You have to go through the entire 14k card set and tag each card as in or out of each format. " doesn't really make sense. They just write, oh I don't know, a few lines of script (i.e. a computer program) to go through each card and sort them into their tribes. Nobody would go through every 14k card; you would just write one line of code:
Each card object already has a tribal identifier, you could even just write a script to check the creature_type box as the deck is saved. If this were 1979 you might go through manually to tag each card, but we have computers to do that... It's really not hard. Considering that code exists already, and they can just pull it out of an earlier version of the program, this gets easier and easier. The only hard part is finding the time to allocate to it when there are other priorities facing the developers.
One thing, though: I really do not think legality lists are established in the way you describe, one card at a time. Or at least, I hope so for Wizard's sake (although it would explain a lot). First off, cards are still defined by their name, a unique identifier, even if they are reprinted. Coding that Mana Leak is legal in a format is enough for the software to recognize any and all versions of Mana Leak, so there is no need to systematically revisit all formats. So old blocks can be simply ignored. As for adding the new cards, I assume they start with a basic excel file with, for example, name and rarity. Adding all commons to the pauper list and removing any redundant cards is trivial. The tribal war format would be a small step up. I don't work for Wizards, but this would be a much more logical way to go at it, and definitely not as difficult as you seem to think. Perhaps a couple of hours for one guy?
Out of curiosity do you have a history of the cost Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. I went hunting for one recently for a casual deck and the cost was much higher than I expected (compared to other Planeswalkers based on how rarely I see Tezzeret in decks).
Also, I had to go through a ton of bots even to find him - is there a Modern deck (or any other) that uses him or has anyone heard of a new Modern deck that utilizes him?
It wouldn't make sense running lifegain in the fog decks, because you lleave the creatures on the field. It does give you a cushion against gary, but since you don't wipe their devotion it will not help all that much, same for the red decks, fanatic of mogis will do 7 or more against fog decks.
If you do run fogs, focus on getting to your win quicker. Too bad the fogs don't protect the planeswalkers, otherwise Ral zarek and maybe even Kiora could help you.
The entire reason why i cut fogs and upped removal is the danger of leaving certain permanents on the field. Magic is no longer a game of just attacking with creatures so a linear gameplan to counter that will not be enough.
I ended up taking the Fog variant (See my article from earlier this week for a decklist) to a Daily on MTGO last night and went 3-1. D.K is spot on about Fogging only when necessary. Some decks require fogging nearly every combat (Mono-red, some mono-black variants with Gary), others you can hold Fogs until you get down to even 10 or so life.
My question to you is how you feel about the two lifegain spells in the deck and which you feel is better. Currently I run Saruli Gatekeepers but have been thinking about switching to the Heroe's Reunion. The Gatekeepers give that nice 2/4 body as a blocker which is huge against mono-red. On the other hand, a lot of decks have dead removal cards sitting in hand and this gives them a target plus it costs two mana more, which is HUGE in any version of this deck.
I've been happy with the gatekeepers, I'm just trying to streamline the deck a bit. I like Heroes Reunion, but the only way I'd be able to fit it into my list is to cut the gatekeerers.
Fog definitely means that people need to design their decks with more than just the red line as their win con. But we knew that already. Too many ways to stall out combat to be assured it will get there 100% or even 75% of the time. In fact my favorite decks tend to be ones that win out of nowhere with no possibility of reprisal or turn around by my foes.
Another Shape Anew target could be to play with 4 Trinket mages and 1 Darksteel relic, that way they can't destroy it in response to the shape anew. Every combo up here folds to spot removal, but Darksteel Relic is pretty hard to spot remove.
Though Spellskite, which most people sideboard, also shuts down the combo.
Sorry, guys. I prefer the Fog variant. :P I feel that Hugo gives the deck a much worse rap than it deserves.
I am one of those people in the JuFF room slinging the Fogs. While I will certainly agree that straight burn laughs at Fogs, it has a tremendous win ability against practically every over deck out there. And often times, I feel that the players themselves are what make Fog not so fun to play against.
I've played against it a few times with my WW deck, and too often, it's just Fog after Fog after Fog while they sit at 20 life, eventually run out of Fogs, and start to die. A good Fog player fogs only when necessary and makes it feel less like they're just playing solitaire.
Something about board wipes makes them much less annoying than Fogs, and often leads to players thanking me for NOT Fogging them to death, although I certainly had the ability to.
Also, maindeck Crackling Perimeter. People love dying to Crackling Perimeter.
Hehe nice, though Id be careful of too many RTB since it can put you within lethal range at the wrong time vs some decks.
By the way I was tinkering with a build AJ_Impy made for Tribal Wars using Maze's End and came up with something somewhat fun (aMazing Elves) and interesting. Not as cool as his though: Mass Destroying/Exiling Humans + guildgates ftw.
The blind obidience has been in the deck since the article went up and the saruli gatekeepers are now 3x sideboard with 4 heroes reunion main, the extra life from blind obidience is huge, and tapped stormbreath dragons, hydras and whatnot too. Also i dropped the red, save for 4 gates and 2 perimeter and dipped into black, great minds think alike right paul?
the current list im playing is:
2 Crackling Perimeter
1 Izzet Guildgate
4 Heroes' Reunion
1 Rakdos Guildgate
2 Simic Guildgate
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Detention Sphere
2 Azorius Charm
4 Divination
4 Dimir Guildgate
1 Boros Guildgate
3 Thoughtseize
4 Maze's End
1 Gruul Guildgate
3 Far/Away
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Merciless Eviction
3 Golgari Guildgate
2 Blind Obedience
4 Supreme Verdict
Sideboard
1 Merciless Eviction
4 Gainsay
3 Saruli Gatekeepers
2 Negate
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Slaughter Games
The divination still wins matches, and a lack of targets for their removal is just gravy. Read the bones might be the next thing ill add, since i'd play 7 Divination if i could and RTB diggs even a little bit deeper.
"Wizards has to program Born of the Gods into Tribal. That has to be one of the most time-consuming tasks imaginable. Take the first card: make it legal in Legacy Tribal. Check that it works with both interfaces. Second card. Add it to the Humans tribe. Add it to the Clerics tribe. Make it work with both interfaces. Third card. Add it to the Humans tribe. Add it to the Shamans tribe. Make sure it works with both interfaces. Next card – and so on."
Uhm, I don't think that's the system. I know it's not in Gatherling, since I can peek behind the curtain there. I've no reason to think anything using a database (and Gatherling uses the WotC database!) works that way.
Here's how it works.
A card is entered in a database. It has fields. One of the field is the type "Creature". Another field is the subtype "Human". You have to fill every field in the card database regardless of the formats you're using, because the search filters need to find those fields upon request.
Now, there's your format. Your format says: "The deck is legal if 33% of the cards of the deck, rounded down, is a positive for the field Creature and shares at least one #keyword in the field Subtype." That's it. The format filter does the check against the database fields, not the other way around. And there's a ban list that says: "The deck is not legal if it features one of the following #cardnames". (I think DCI changed the Tribal Wars ban list only one in the last decade).
In Gatherling, once a new set comes, someone has to enter all the new cards in the card database with all their fields (they take those directly from Gatherer.com, I believe). A card doesn't have a field saying, "This is legal for Legacy Tribal Wars". It has a field saying, "This is a creature", and another saying, "This is a Human".
At that point, every PRE host has to update the list of allowed formats in their PREs. They go to "Format Editor", click "Born of the Gods", done. It takes about 10 seconds. If someone had to do it for every format and subformat in existence, that would take, let's say maybe 15 minutes? (I manage a dozen formats and subformats myself).
And this is just because Gatherling gives the hosts total control over what their events allow. It would be easy to have all the new sets (particularly the current block's sets that are legal in most formats) added by default to the card pool of every format, with the host of particular events required to go and exclude them. But it's safer the way it's done. (The hosts of Heirloom formats are probably the ones who have more work to do.)
I like it. I learned a lot from this one. This is really nice. - Aldo Disorbo
Hey pete I love your articles, always something intresting.
It is nice to hear someone from Wizard finally replying for a change.
PS:When is the best time to sell modern cards? Now or wait until a day before the modern protour?
I certainly don't run as much removal as your variant, but the removal I do run is probably key to the deck. While I do run 16 fogs, they are generally to fog the combat steps between board wipes.
If you look at my list, I run similar mass removal as your deck.
4x Supreme Verdict
2x Merciless Eviction
I run one less detention sphere at 3x, but I do run 2x Ratchet Bomb main and 2x in the side.
Maybe my build is different from other fog decks you have seen. Your removal spell count is higher at 20 (if you count both charms) but with me running 13 removal spells maindeck, I don't leave creatures on the board as much as you might think.
I do plan on running Kiora. I know Fog itself protects planeswalkers due to how it is worded. Kiora protects itself in some fashion as well.
I wonder if there is a viable variant using Gary and Underworld connections. And to answer my own question, no there isn't.
I tried something like:
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2 Rakdos Guildgate
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Detention Sphere
3 Blind Obedience
3 Azorius Charm
3 Crackling Perimeter
4 Maze's End
3 Izzet Guildgate
2 Simic Guildgate
2 Gruul Guildgate
2 Merciless Eviction
4 Dimir Guildgate
2 Boros Guildgate
2 Golgari Guildgate
2 Orzhov Guildgate
2 Far/Away
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Azorius Guildgate
2 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Underworld Connections
thinking with a good draw you get underworld connections after perimeter or obedience and then two turns later gary. But as it turns out your opponent will a) concede to perimeter, b) kill you with weenies before you see 3 lands c) play one monster at a time when you draw all your removal and then kill you when you run out d) win while you pick off some of their creatures.
At no time will you a) draw the perfect hand, b) get an opponent who isn't playing aggro weenie burn of some kind, c) play gary to effect d) have a good/fun game.
So nevermind that idea.
Kalandine, I assume you don't know mtgGoldfish.com.
Here's your history of Tezzeret's price. And everything else. MTGO Traders prices.
Great job as always, Pete!
But just to throw my two cents... I know I might be in the (vocal) minority here, but this talk of "too many options confuse players" really worries me about where MTGO is going. The coding of niche formats takes too much work that should be better spent somewhere else? There's a perfectly fine solution for it: make the game moddable. Let us create our own formats and make them client-enforceable, and let us share these formats in between us.
Every step MTGO takes is the direction of making it hard for us to play (casually) the way we'd like is a step that towards reinforcing online play as an impoverished version of paper play.
"Making Force of Will a MOCS promo also did very little to its long-term price."
True. Does somebody have any idea of the impact of these cards on the player base of legacy/classic formats ? It would be interesting to know.
Prices of Masques block staples are insane (400tix for ports playset is a joke), but maybe that vintage masters will correct that a bit.
Glad it's coming back, but still can't agree with Alison's reasoning on the format eliminations:
"newer players can be overwhelmed by the number of format choices, and this removal helps these players more easily find an experience that is right for them."
That goes to what I was saying. I don't think the core demographic of people who are attracted to Magic are paralyzed by choice. I'm sure their market research shows that some people are, but those people can stay nice and comfy in the little restricted cocoon of Duels of the Planeswalkers, and leave MTGO to people who don't flee in terror from having options. And "experience that is right for them"... interesting way of saying: casual players need to play only the formats that we sell pre-con decks for at the storefront.
The other point about building decks for a format and discovering that nobody plays it is more valid, BUT... I never would have discovered Legacy Tribal Wars if not for that very thing. I had a Goblin deck that wasn't quite up to snuff for real Legacy at the time, saw the "Tribal Wars" format in the pulldown menu and figured I'd give it a whirl. After a few casual matches somebody mentioned this tournament to me, and it took off from there. I brewed up a Barbarian deck and took it to the event and was hooked ever since -- despite the fact that somebody (I think it was NemesisParadigm or filebana) Show and Tell an Eldrazi on me my first time in the event.
So while I understand the logic of that point, playing a format really only takes a few people interested in it, and things can easily snowball from there will the help of PRE support. If the PRE scene wasn't so dominated by budget restrictions, K-scope might have gained some velocity and been saved too.
While Wizzos promising to bring back Tribal Wars does show a glimmer of hope, I'm not holding my breath. I'm convinced it's Leagues all over again. "It's coming." I'd love for Tribal Wars (and K-scope, too, for that matter!) to come back next downtime, but I don't believe it'll be any time soon. 2015 if we're damn lucky.
Joe Lossett (oarsman on mtgo) has been streaming a lot with Tezz Control in Legacy recently. Accordingly, I believe that a number of people are also buying Tezz for that deck.
I have seen a few others playing Tezz control as well, mostly since Joe started streaming it.
I'm sure you have experience in coding, so to say "You have to go through the entire 14k card set and tag each card as in or out of each format. " doesn't really make sense. They just write, oh I don't know, a few lines of script (i.e. a computer program) to go through each card and sort them into their tribes. Nobody would go through every 14k card; you would just write one line of code:
Card_legality(classic tribal wars) = Card_legality(classic) - Banned_list(tribal wars).
Done.
Each card object already has a tribal identifier, you could even just write a script to check the creature_type box as the deck is saved. If this were 1979 you might go through manually to tag each card, but we have computers to do that... It's really not hard. Considering that code exists already, and they can just pull it out of an earlier version of the program, this gets easier and easier. The only hard part is finding the time to allocate to it when there are other priorities facing the developers.
As always, thanks for your article.
One thing, though: I really do not think legality lists are established in the way you describe, one card at a time. Or at least, I hope so for Wizard's sake (although it would explain a lot). First off, cards are still defined by their name, a unique identifier, even if they are reprinted. Coding that Mana Leak is legal in a format is enough for the software to recognize any and all versions of Mana Leak, so there is no need to systematically revisit all formats. So old blocks can be simply ignored. As for adding the new cards, I assume they start with a basic excel file with, for example, name and rarity. Adding all commons to the pauper list and removing any redundant cards is trivial. The tribal war format would be a small step up. I don't work for Wizards, but this would be a much more logical way to go at it, and definitely not as difficult as you seem to think. Perhaps a couple of hours for one guy?
Tezz Control is a deck in Modern. It doesn't show up often, but it is a deck with proven results in the dailies.
Out of curiosity do you have a history of the cost Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. I went hunting for one recently for a casual deck and the cost was much higher than I expected (compared to other Planeswalkers based on how rarely I see Tezzeret in decks).
Also, I had to go through a ton of bots even to find him - is there a Modern deck (or any other) that uses him or has anyone heard of a new Modern deck that utilizes him?
Thanks.
It wouldn't make sense running lifegain in the fog decks, because you lleave the creatures on the field. It does give you a cushion against gary, but since you don't wipe their devotion it will not help all that much, same for the red decks, fanatic of mogis will do 7 or more against fog decks.
If you do run fogs, focus on getting to your win quicker. Too bad the fogs don't protect the planeswalkers, otherwise Ral zarek and maybe even Kiora could help you.
The entire reason why i cut fogs and upped removal is the danger of leaving certain permanents on the field. Magic is no longer a game of just attacking with creatures so a linear gameplan to counter that will not be enough.
I ended up taking the Fog variant (See my article from earlier this week for a decklist) to a Daily on MTGO last night and went 3-1. D.K is spot on about Fogging only when necessary. Some decks require fogging nearly every combat (Mono-red, some mono-black variants with Gary), others you can hold Fogs until you get down to even 10 or so life.
My question to you is how you feel about the two lifegain spells in the deck and which you feel is better. Currently I run Saruli Gatekeepers but have been thinking about switching to the Heroe's Reunion. The Gatekeepers give that nice 2/4 body as a blocker which is huge against mono-red. On the other hand, a lot of decks have dead removal cards sitting in hand and this gives them a target plus it costs two mana more, which is HUGE in any version of this deck.
I've been happy with the gatekeepers, I'm just trying to streamline the deck a bit. I like Heroes Reunion, but the only way I'd be able to fit it into my list is to cut the gatekeerers.
Fog definitely means that people need to design their decks with more than just the red line as their win con. But we knew that already. Too many ways to stall out combat to be assured it will get there 100% or even 75% of the time. In fact my favorite decks tend to be ones that win out of nowhere with no possibility of reprisal or turn around by my foes.
Another Shape Anew target could be to play with 4 Trinket mages and 1 Darksteel relic, that way they can't destroy it in response to the shape anew. Every combo up here folds to spot removal, but Darksteel Relic is pretty hard to spot remove.
Though Spellskite, which most people sideboard, also shuts down the combo.
Sorry, guys. I prefer the Fog variant. :P I feel that Hugo gives the deck a much worse rap than it deserves.
I am one of those people in the JuFF room slinging the Fogs. While I will certainly agree that straight burn laughs at Fogs, it has a tremendous win ability against practically every over deck out there. And often times, I feel that the players themselves are what make Fog not so fun to play against.
I've played against it a few times with my WW deck, and too often, it's just Fog after Fog after Fog while they sit at 20 life, eventually run out of Fogs, and start to die. A good Fog player fogs only when necessary and makes it feel less like they're just playing solitaire.
Something about board wipes makes them much less annoying than Fogs, and often leads to players thanking me for NOT Fogging them to death, although I certainly had the ability to.
Also, maindeck Crackling Perimeter. People love dying to Crackling Perimeter.
Hopefully they'll get Tribal back a little more quickly than bringing back leagues has gone on.
I was going to post the same.
The post by Alison is here.
Well, 48 hours since the announcement, 24 hours since the protest started.
Good job, everyone.
Wow that was fast. I guess my article is unnecessary now.