The thing about prize penalties. Sure, on paper it seems like it would make sense. In reality? Except some budget players that play 2-tix Goblin decks hoping to win 2 tix (when they can, which is once per month, so why bother punishing them further? It becomes cruel and unusual punishment), most of the players we're talking about here won't care that much, if not maybe as a principle. I'll explain why.
Tribal Apocalypse has a very democratic prize distribution. Most events award prizes to more than one third of the participants (typically is 2 undefeated and 6 with 1-loss in a 20-player event, so that's almost 50% of the participants). It means the single prize isn't a lot, typically little more than 2 tix. Making more people happier, which is the mandate of the event.
Another effect of this is that they guy with 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds don't care in the least about those 2 tix. They don't play for the prizes, they play because this is the only Tribal events where they can play, and one of the few weekly Legacy events as far as I know, and always more fun to play than your average Legacy event with its strictly defined archetypes. And they do want to play their LEDs. (I use LED as an example because nobody actually ever used them here, so it won't feel like I'm talking of someone specifically).
I am calm? Yes he killed me game 2 with Pop as part of his burn suite.
Also I suppose I should be a little clearer. It isn't that my opponents were unfriendly. Coolcat was the only who didn't chat with me at all in game. (Though he chatted afterward.) They weren't nasty and didn't curse at me. But all the same this same refrain has come up so many times in tribal events that it is wearing on my patience.
The big thing is that they all had the same refrain at the start of the game and in 2 of 3 cases they were totally wrong about the outcome. Admittedly I could have won any of the 4 games that I lost that cost me me those 2 matches because they were really close games. We were all playing bad tribes with suboptimal support cards. Mine was somewhat frozen in place by the restrictions of the challenge and I decided to go the full way and play into the theme despite the fact that playing STP and or Wrath and that card type would have suited the match play better. But that was my choice. I could have played a much tighter deck and I might still have lost anyway. Can't entirely blame the deck there.
The griping just put the event over the top for me as a bad day.
Paul, calm down, man. Note that I exempted lands on my point #7, the restriction I most favored, once I remembered that tribes definitely need a viable manabase. This means rare cards. I just forgot to go back and similarly exempt lands where needed elsewhere (e.g., suggestion #5). I feel bad for you that people would yell at you for a manabase when otherwise some tribes would be even more unplayable than they are (was the burn deck player running PoP?). As someone who has 2-4x foil copies of each ME4 dual, I can totally empathize.
While some of those ideas have merit some really rub me the wrong way. There is something to be said for allowing an extensive mana base for example because without it the simpler monocolored tribes win. All of the time. Neither Elves nor Goblins require much in the way of rares or money cards at all to win. It is those who try to explore the outer reaches of the format who rely more heavily on the pricy mana bases.
Now if you want to start your own Heirloom Tribal event I am certain you will have takers but in my humble opinion that will not fly for many of the regulars. It is one thing to live under restrictions, and another for them to be so oppressive that only the spikiest of spike tribes have a decent chance.
I am in agreement that positive solutions are far better than penalties. But if there were penalties I would suggest that they go toward reducing prize winnings rather than towards bans.
If you play Goblins for example as your tribe and go 4-0 or 3-0 you get the prize for undefeated - 1.
If you run more than 2 blades("swords of...", or batterskull) and you go undefeated you get your prize -1 tix.
Penalties would be cumulative so that it would be possible to go undefeated and win nothing. No one else gets that prize either. It goes back to MTGOtraders.
I am betting that wouldn't be very popular either. But if it were varied so that some weeks it would be perfectly OK to run Elves Combo and another OK to run Dream Halls Combo, and another OK to run Charbelcher or Dredge or some other Legacy Shoehorn, I think that would be interesting.
Today I ran Archers for Rex's challenge and couldn't win more than 1 of 4 matches (though I did win 4 total games out of 10 which isn't the worst I've done.) That was excruciating but what really pissed me off was that each of my opponents, except Coolcat (who won with a burn.dec) complained about my expensive mana base.
Nevermind that I wasn't running anything near an optimal tribal deck for underdog. (Archers may be the weakest tribe around and the extra restrictions placed by the challenge definitely made it a bad bet.) My point being that money isn't the problem.
Easy buttons are. And if you take away the easy buttons people will leave.
I'm going to quote A.J. in a separate mini-thread: "Wanting people to try out interesting things needs incentivization. If you want people to play sunforger, deathrender or any other specific equipment, we can reward them through the achievement system. At present, equipment which has a great chance of winning you the game no matter what comes out as by far the better option than trying to be clever."
Well said, A.J. Too bad so much emphasis is put on winning and losing, and that said, Kuma does far, far better than what it used to be before his Apocalypse series. Winning and losing may be a necessary evil, but if I were in control of the universe, I would try to reward the tribal decks that most personified what it is to be that tribe. I have a hard time remembering, outside of "regular" events, when the last time I either won or lost a game where the reason was not mainly because of the support cards, not the tribe. In several games, won and lost, the winning tribe didn't have a single tribal member on the battlefield.
Kuma and others have developed the "achievements" but they still seem artificial and haphazard (only certain tribes need apply). I would like to see us think more along the lines of incentivization.
Yet, until A.J. or someone else can concretize "incentivization" with a good plan, here are some potential negative-based solutions:
1) greatly extending the ban list with narrow cards that are only likely to be used degeneratively;
2) banning certain combos;
3) banning swords and Jace (for variety's sake)
4) increasing the tribal proportion to 24/60 instead of 20/60;
5) putting financial (i.e., "heirloom") constraints on non-tribal cards;
6) some kind of format-specific sideboard rules that target noncreature permanents or combos
7) allowing only commons and uncommons and lands for non-tribal cards.
Of these, I like the last best, and would like it to be implemented in all but "Regular" events. It levels the playing field for beginners (I have a huge collection, other people, not so much), incentivizes heavier tribal counts (you sometimes get more rares), and it prevents overpowered cards from overtaking the tribe's identity or modus operandi, which otherwise would arguably make (and currently makes) a joke of the format. Obviously spot removal becomes more prevalent, but that's a lesser evil and can be metagamed against.
Still, incentivizing tribal purity is best, if it can be done properly.
Wanting people to try out interesting things needs incentivization. If you want people to play sunforger, deathrender or any other specific equipment, we can reward them through the achievement system. At present, equipment which has a great chance of winning you the game no matter what comes out as by far the better option than trying to be clever.
You misunderstood me/I haven't been clear: I didn't imply that the variety would come from the Sword players changing equipments should the Swords be banned (although, it might happen). I was mainly talking of giving back to the players who NOW want to play strange, Johnny equipments the help of Stoneforge Mystic, that now they can't play uniquely because of the players who would abuse her with the Swords/Batterskull. The notion that the presence of such no-brainer cards is hindering the playability of fun cards like Sunforger or Deathrender is very sad to me.
The solution proposed by romellos feels ideal, but it's technically difficult to accomplish in the filter (and I want to reduce almost to zero the cases where I need to check the lists myself, because I know I'd make mistakes in that case).
We'll see. For now it's just weekend talk. But I'm curious to know more opinions via poll (I'll start it next week).
Something to consider is the possibility that people who use the swords won't just start using another equipment in case of a ban. More spikey types might just conclude that other equipment is not powerful enough to warrant playing in a Legacy format and add 3 more removal spells instead. Such scenario would decrease and not increase the variety. (And as far as influencing the equipment choices of non-spike players, I don't know how prevalent the swords are in that group anyway)
But I'm not sure what would happen, of course.
Variety issue aside, and concentrating only on a power level, I don't think the swords are powerful enough to warrant a ban. They are powerful equipment for sure, but this is a Legacy format, and spending 5 mana to attempt to equip a creature is a risky play with potentially severe tempo ramificiations if it goes wrong. Obviously, everyone will have different experiences, but I generally never perceived Swords as a huge threat, except when I played slower decks, like Assassins and Vampires. They seem to be the best versus more midrange/controlish decks that can't deal with artifacts. So the lesson learned for me was that if I want to play control, I need to be able to deal with artifacts, but if I am playing aggro, my opponent's are more than welcome to spend their resources on the swords while I am beating them down. Same holds true for combo decks, of course.
I don't know, I actually think the swords are overrated. I never had any desire to include them in my decks, but I might have evaluated them wrongly.
The idea of an either/or is interesting. The problem is that implementing it in the Gatherling filter would require creating a specific tool for that, and I don't think it's worth it.
Plus, I'm not sure it would change much re: decks using the Swords right now, as they could keep doing the same things and ignore the Mystic.
And yeah, O-Naginata is great and totally disregarded, once again because it asks for some thinking on how to better use it.
We're just talking. We might be taking a poll about it. We'll definitely take a poll about it.
But I keep refusing the argument, "you have ways to deal with it".
So, you can deal with Umezawa's Jitte, too. And Thopter Foundry, the same way. The necessary, joined criteria for banning (at least, on my watch) are level of annoyance on the battlefield, level of ubiquity in the lists. They're both high in the case of the Swords.
And like romellos, I miss Stoneforge Mystic off-tribe. She's out only because of the Swords (and to a lesser extent, Batterskull). This fact precludes a more creative use of the equipments in favor of the most possible lazy one. I don't like killing deckbuilding possibilities to preserve obvious and powerful ones, it's kinda the opposite of what we should push for.
A deck probably should include a plan to deal with artifacts. Even among mono-color decks, blue can counter them, black has discard, and the other three colors are great at blowing up artifacts. And in most cases it is not a matter of having to maindeck a very narrow answer card that is useless in 90% of your matchups, the way graveyard hate is. There is removal that hits all permanents plus creatures (D-Sphere, O-Ring, Vindicate), and that's all very playable in tribal. Finding a way to deal with noncreature permanents is just a part of good deckbuilding in this format, people have been doing it for the entire time I've been playing the format.
I think banning the Swords from Pure Tribal is a defensible position as I said above, and I can see arguments on either side. Banning them in anything beyond Pure is going too far, in my opinion. The format appears to be working right now, and I am not seeing evidence of a pressing need to ban them.
Minor correction on the commentary, in round 3 Slug was playing Soldiers against Miha's Constructs, I was playing the Gorgon deck linked against PK23's artificers.
Wow, I'm really thrilled about your idea to bring back SFM and ban Swords & Batterskull. Maybe we can tweak this idea as; people may choose to include SFM to their respective deck without any Swords & Batterskull or they can play with any Swords or Batterskull without the SFM. This is just my brainstorm here.
Either way, I think things may become interesting after this change. There are lots of good equipment around waiting to be explored; like Sunforge, Neko-Te, O-Naginata (as I remember you are the only one who played with it up to now at Tribal games, Wolf deck) and some obvious others as well...
I absolutely agree about the necessity to keep format complexity in check. It's the reason why this year we won't have too many gimmick events, and we'll keep the rotation clear and steady. Underdog is "the format where we play the minor tribes". No other restrictions need to exist there. Pure is a more experimental format, but I want to try and sell the concept of "playing pure", so that it might become intuitive what we're doing here. The first aspect is playing only your tribe's creatures, of course. But even all the "usual suspects" might be seen as an "impurity".
Back when we restricted Stoneforge Mystic, there was the idea to ban the Swords (and probably Batterskull) as an alternative. Going with the Mystic was the simpler solution, but the two things are linked. Should we ban the Swords across the formats, the Mystic would come back. I'd actually love to see her fetch things like Basilisk Collar or Sword of Vengeance (and Johnny equipments like Sunforger or Deathrender would become more playable, too).
About what you say below: I don't want to defend LAZY mono-colored builds. But I don't want to punish them, either, because that would mean punish the budget players. I can't do that as a host.
Plus, with some luck (and that's a factor), you might have the right sword against BOTH the opponent's dual-deck colors. So it's not just about mono-colored.
A case in favor of banning the Swords can be made based on the fact that they're the next best thing after Umezawa's Jitte, and Jitte was dangerous enough to be recognized as such by the WotC itself, which doesn't really check the Tribal Wars ban list in probably a decade.
In a creature format, that kind of effect is relevant. And honestly, the "but if you have the right answer, they're fine" is a flawed line of defense. Then everything is fine. The issues need to be analyzed when you DON'T have the answer. How warped do the games become at that point? They seem pretty warped to me, due to inevitability: it's hard to trade with a Jitte-equipped creature, but it's not inconceivable.
And more arguments can be made: the "rewarding luck" argument; the "promoting deckbuilding laziness" argument, and so on.
Just saying, of course.
Yeah, they are the go-to final slots when you don't want to think of anything different. While there are other good equipments that could see play instead, within tribes that care for those (like, say, Troll).
I'm thinking of a ban limited to Pure events. I'd like to ban stuff in Underdog, but I want to keep it simpler: Underdog is where the restriction targets the tribes, Pure is where it targets the cards (off-tribe stuff, T9. There's some tribes banned, too, but nowhere close to Underdog, that bans 1/4 of them). So, in short, I'd rather not ban specific cards in Underdog.
Budget players have plenty of low-cost mana-fixing options, I don't really think anybody is forced to play mono-color. Three-color decks really want fetches and duals most of the time, but two-color decks can get by just fine on many alternatives under a dollar. I don't agree with giving any special protection to mono-color decks, as I don't really find Yet Another White Weenie Deck and Yet Another Mono-Red Aggro Deck to be that valuable to the format. And in either deck there is ample instant-speed removal to kill a guy in response to a sword-equip. Those decks might also just win before the Sword becomes relevant. You yourself have gone back and forth over the issue of whether or not cards that punish mono-color builds are good or bad for the format, and it sounds like there's still some diversity of opinion on that point.
It's mainly because a Sword is the ultimate randomness, you often have 1-of of 2-3 of them, so drawing into the right one is sheer luck. They're more cause of sorrow than most of the other strong plays. I mean, Batterskull is strong regardless, doesn't feel like something that's targeting you specifically, which makes you feel bad. And yeah, I came to think that the mono-colored builds should be protected. They're a budget player's refugee, and sometimes all that minor tribes can do.
(It's 5 mana, by the way, they cost 2 to equip. Loxodon Warhammer is 3+3).
Thanks for shout out Kuma :) I am looking forward to toying with sirens and perhaps badgers too (did you know that badgers and wolverines are in the same family? I bet you did since you named it. )Anyway love the fighting spirit of those animals and they are strangely becoming as well.
I don't think banning swords from pure will be great for morale because they tend to be relatively accessible now and are often a first answer to much of what is broken in creature removal for tribal wars. But I get the temptation. It sucks to see everyone tread the same tired path when you've been over it hundreds of times. Particularly when there are actually quite a rich variety of possible answers to choose from instead of the usual suspects. Swords are costly in game (6 mana to legit cast & equip) though unlike STP and most of the T9. I have lost quite a few games with a sword on the board too so they aren't game ending, unless your op is in monocolor. And imho the monocolored players make themselves vulnerable as a tradeoff for their efficient draws and plays.
Thanks Rex for posting AJ's finals game. Since I wasn't there that weekend it was good to see it. Slug is a tough customer and that Merfolk deck looked nasty.
I think it would be fine to add Swords of X&Y to the banned list from Pure, as they are the sort of card like StP/Bolt/etc that is good both with and against almost any creature-based deck, which is what Tribal is. But you have to be careful of that list creeping and growing, because you are basically asking new players to remember two distinct banned lists: the normal list, and the pure list. Plus the pure format has banned *tribes* on top of that. The rotating sub-formats of Tribal Apocalypse may keep things fresh week to week, but they also have a cost in terms of format complexity, and those two things have to be balanced against each other.
But as a counterpoint to banning it, I think there is some value in the fact that the Swords' presence gives higher value to otherwise marginal tribes and creatures that interact well with artifacts. I also believe that since SFM was "restricted" to Kor and Artificer decks, which are basically legal once or at most twice per month, the original strength of the blades has greatly diminished. That too came at some cost, as easy access to blades was one of the things helping increase the play of minor weenie tribes like Pegasus or the Boros Samurai deck I twice went undefeated with back in 2011. We speculated at the time that Steelshaper's Gift or Enlightened Tutor would take SFM's place, but neither card has made much of a splash. W/o SFM, you can't just play one each of 3-4 different ones and get the perfect one for each matchup. For some reason, I guess because of alot of our guys being commander players too, playing one of each is still the norm, even without tutoring ability. Overall, I think the influence of those blades is in an acceptable place right now.
And yes that was the first time I'd seen the hilarious pig token. It is hands-down the funniest thing they have put in a Magic set in ages.
The thing about prize penalties. Sure, on paper it seems like it would make sense. In reality? Except some budget players that play 2-tix Goblin decks hoping to win 2 tix (when they can, which is once per month, so why bother punishing them further? It becomes cruel and unusual punishment), most of the players we're talking about here won't care that much, if not maybe as a principle. I'll explain why.
Tribal Apocalypse has a very democratic prize distribution. Most events award prizes to more than one third of the participants (typically is 2 undefeated and 6 with 1-loss in a 20-player event, so that's almost 50% of the participants). It means the single prize isn't a lot, typically little more than 2 tix. Making more people happier, which is the mandate of the event.
Another effect of this is that they guy with 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds don't care in the least about those 2 tix. They don't play for the prizes, they play because this is the only Tribal events where they can play, and one of the few weekly Legacy events as far as I know, and always more fun to play than your average Legacy event with its strictly defined archetypes. And they do want to play their LEDs. (I use LED as an example because nobody actually ever used them here, so it won't feel like I'm talking of someone specifically).
The draft is going to be good. Everything in that card deck looks impressive. - Roger Stanton
The common cause for this all is the same. They are really going to become a little bit better with it. - Roger Stanton
I really hate spoiler because it took away excitement. - Larry Starr Sarasota
I am calm? Yes he killed me game 2 with Pop as part of his burn suite.
Also I suppose I should be a little clearer. It isn't that my opponents were unfriendly. Coolcat was the only who didn't chat with me at all in game. (Though he chatted afterward.) They weren't nasty and didn't curse at me. But all the same this same refrain has come up so many times in tribal events that it is wearing on my patience.
The big thing is that they all had the same refrain at the start of the game and in 2 of 3 cases they were totally wrong about the outcome. Admittedly I could have won any of the 4 games that I lost that cost me me those 2 matches because they were really close games. We were all playing bad tribes with suboptimal support cards. Mine was somewhat frozen in place by the restrictions of the challenge and I decided to go the full way and play into the theme despite the fact that playing STP and or Wrath and that card type would have suited the match play better. But that was my choice. I could have played a much tighter deck and I might still have lost anyway. Can't entirely blame the deck there.
The griping just put the event over the top for me as a bad day.
Paul, calm down, man. Note that I exempted lands on my point #7, the restriction I most favored, once I remembered that tribes definitely need a viable manabase. This means rare cards. I just forgot to go back and similarly exempt lands where needed elsewhere (e.g., suggestion #5). I feel bad for you that people would yell at you for a manabase when otherwise some tribes would be even more unplayable than they are (was the burn deck player running PoP?). As someone who has 2-4x foil copies of each ME4 dual, I can totally empathize.
While some of those ideas have merit some really rub me the wrong way. There is something to be said for allowing an extensive mana base for example because without it the simpler monocolored tribes win. All of the time. Neither Elves nor Goblins require much in the way of rares or money cards at all to win. It is those who try to explore the outer reaches of the format who rely more heavily on the pricy mana bases.
Now if you want to start your own Heirloom Tribal event I am certain you will have takers but in my humble opinion that will not fly for many of the regulars. It is one thing to live under restrictions, and another for them to be so oppressive that only the spikiest of spike tribes have a decent chance.
I am in agreement that positive solutions are far better than penalties. But if there were penalties I would suggest that they go toward reducing prize winnings rather than towards bans.
If you play Goblins for example as your tribe and go 4-0 or 3-0 you get the prize for undefeated - 1.
If you run more than 2 blades("swords of...", or batterskull) and you go undefeated you get your prize -1 tix.
Penalties would be cumulative so that it would be possible to go undefeated and win nothing. No one else gets that prize either. It goes back to MTGOtraders.
I am betting that wouldn't be very popular either. But if it were varied so that some weeks it would be perfectly OK to run Elves Combo and another OK to run Dream Halls Combo, and another OK to run Charbelcher or Dredge or some other Legacy Shoehorn, I think that would be interesting.
Today I ran Archers for Rex's challenge and couldn't win more than 1 of 4 matches (though I did win 4 total games out of 10 which isn't the worst I've done.) That was excruciating but what really pissed me off was that each of my opponents, except Coolcat (who won with a burn.dec) complained about my expensive mana base.
Nevermind that I wasn't running anything near an optimal tribal deck for underdog. (Archers may be the weakest tribe around and the extra restrictions placed by the challenge definitely made it a bad bet.) My point being that money isn't the problem.
Easy buttons are. And if you take away the easy buttons people will leave.
The videos are good. I like the idea though. Keep it up. - Green Water Technologies
I'm going to quote A.J. in a separate mini-thread: "Wanting people to try out interesting things needs incentivization. If you want people to play sunforger, deathrender or any other specific equipment, we can reward them through the achievement system. At present, equipment which has a great chance of winning you the game no matter what comes out as by far the better option than trying to be clever."
Well said, A.J. Too bad so much emphasis is put on winning and losing, and that said, Kuma does far, far better than what it used to be before his Apocalypse series. Winning and losing may be a necessary evil, but if I were in control of the universe, I would try to reward the tribal decks that most personified what it is to be that tribe. I have a hard time remembering, outside of "regular" events, when the last time I either won or lost a game where the reason was not mainly because of the support cards, not the tribe. In several games, won and lost, the winning tribe didn't have a single tribal member on the battlefield.
Kuma and others have developed the "achievements" but they still seem artificial and haphazard (only certain tribes need apply). I would like to see us think more along the lines of incentivization.
Yet, until A.J. or someone else can concretize "incentivization" with a good plan, here are some potential negative-based solutions:
1) greatly extending the ban list with narrow cards that are only likely to be used degeneratively;
2) banning certain combos;
3) banning swords and Jace (for variety's sake)
4) increasing the tribal proportion to 24/60 instead of 20/60;
5) putting financial (i.e., "heirloom") constraints on non-tribal cards;
6) some kind of format-specific sideboard rules that target noncreature permanents or combos
7) allowing only commons and uncommons and lands for non-tribal cards.
Of these, I like the last best, and would like it to be implemented in all but "Regular" events. It levels the playing field for beginners (I have a huge collection, other people, not so much), incentivizes heavier tribal counts (you sometimes get more rares), and it prevents overpowered cards from overtaking the tribe's identity or modus operandi, which otherwise would arguably make (and currently makes) a joke of the format. Obviously spot removal becomes more prevalent, but that's a lesser evil and can be metagamed against.
Still, incentivizing tribal purity is best, if it can be done properly.
Wanting people to try out interesting things needs incentivization. If you want people to play sunforger, deathrender or any other specific equipment, we can reward them through the achievement system. At present, equipment which has a great chance of winning you the game no matter what comes out as by far the better option than trying to be clever.
You misunderstood me/I haven't been clear: I didn't imply that the variety would come from the Sword players changing equipments should the Swords be banned (although, it might happen). I was mainly talking of giving back to the players who NOW want to play strange, Johnny equipments the help of Stoneforge Mystic, that now they can't play uniquely because of the players who would abuse her with the Swords/Batterskull. The notion that the presence of such no-brainer cards is hindering the playability of fun cards like Sunforger or Deathrender is very sad to me.
The solution proposed by romellos feels ideal, but it's technically difficult to accomplish in the filter (and I want to reduce almost to zero the cases where I need to check the lists myself, because I know I'd make mistakes in that case).
We'll see. For now it's just weekend talk. But I'm curious to know more opinions via poll (I'll start it next week).
Something to consider is the possibility that people who use the swords won't just start using another equipment in case of a ban. More spikey types might just conclude that other equipment is not powerful enough to warrant playing in a Legacy format and add 3 more removal spells instead. Such scenario would decrease and not increase the variety. (And as far as influencing the equipment choices of non-spike players, I don't know how prevalent the swords are in that group anyway)
But I'm not sure what would happen, of course.
Variety issue aside, and concentrating only on a power level, I don't think the swords are powerful enough to warrant a ban. They are powerful equipment for sure, but this is a Legacy format, and spending 5 mana to attempt to equip a creature is a risky play with potentially severe tempo ramificiations if it goes wrong. Obviously, everyone will have different experiences, but I generally never perceived Swords as a huge threat, except when I played slower decks, like Assassins and Vampires. They seem to be the best versus more midrange/controlish decks that can't deal with artifacts. So the lesson learned for me was that if I want to play control, I need to be able to deal with artifacts, but if I am playing aggro, my opponent's are more than welcome to spend their resources on the swords while I am beating them down. Same holds true for combo decks, of course.
I don't know, I actually think the swords are overrated. I never had any desire to include them in my decks, but I might have evaluated them wrongly.
The idea of an either/or is interesting. The problem is that implementing it in the Gatherling filter would require creating a specific tool for that, and I don't think it's worth it.
Plus, I'm not sure it would change much re: decks using the Swords right now, as they could keep doing the same things and ignore the Mystic.
And yeah, O-Naginata is great and totally disregarded, once again because it asks for some thinking on how to better use it.
Yeah, those links have been added by me to supplement Rex's comments. I messed up there.
The links to the semi-finals decks are these:
AJ_Impy: Gorgon
vs.
pk23: Artificer
slug360: Soldier
vs.
mihahitlor: Construct
We're just talking. We might be taking a poll about it. We'll definitely take a poll about it.
But I keep refusing the argument, "you have ways to deal with it".
So, you can deal with Umezawa's Jitte, too. And Thopter Foundry, the same way. The necessary, joined criteria for banning (at least, on my watch) are level of annoyance on the battlefield, level of ubiquity in the lists. They're both high in the case of the Swords.
And like romellos, I miss Stoneforge Mystic off-tribe. She's out only because of the Swords (and to a lesser extent, Batterskull). This fact precludes a more creative use of the equipments in favor of the most possible lazy one. I don't like killing deckbuilding possibilities to preserve obvious and powerful ones, it's kinda the opposite of what we should push for.
Good to see these updates. They are really good. I want to learn more on this game. - Nationwide Relocation Services
A deck probably should include a plan to deal with artifacts. Even among mono-color decks, blue can counter them, black has discard, and the other three colors are great at blowing up artifacts. And in most cases it is not a matter of having to maindeck a very narrow answer card that is useless in 90% of your matchups, the way graveyard hate is. There is removal that hits all permanents plus creatures (D-Sphere, O-Ring, Vindicate), and that's all very playable in tribal. Finding a way to deal with noncreature permanents is just a part of good deckbuilding in this format, people have been doing it for the entire time I've been playing the format.
I think banning the Swords from Pure Tribal is a defensible position as I said above, and I can see arguments on either side. Banning them in anything beyond Pure is going too far, in my opinion. The format appears to be working right now, and I am not seeing evidence of a pressing need to ban them.
Minor correction on the commentary, in round 3 Slug was playing Soldiers against Miha's Constructs, I was playing the Gorgon deck linked against PK23's artificers.
Wow, I'm really thrilled about your idea to bring back SFM and ban Swords & Batterskull. Maybe we can tweak this idea as; people may choose to include SFM to their respective deck without any Swords & Batterskull or they can play with any Swords or Batterskull without the SFM. This is just my brainstorm here.
Either way, I think things may become interesting after this change. There are lots of good equipment around waiting to be explored; like Sunforge, Neko-Te, O-Naginata (as I remember you are the only one who played with it up to now at Tribal games, Wolf deck) and some obvious others as well...
I absolutely agree about the necessity to keep format complexity in check. It's the reason why this year we won't have too many gimmick events, and we'll keep the rotation clear and steady. Underdog is "the format where we play the minor tribes". No other restrictions need to exist there. Pure is a more experimental format, but I want to try and sell the concept of "playing pure", so that it might become intuitive what we're doing here. The first aspect is playing only your tribe's creatures, of course. But even all the "usual suspects" might be seen as an "impurity".
Back when we restricted Stoneforge Mystic, there was the idea to ban the Swords (and probably Batterskull) as an alternative. Going with the Mystic was the simpler solution, but the two things are linked. Should we ban the Swords across the formats, the Mystic would come back. I'd actually love to see her fetch things like Basilisk Collar or Sword of Vengeance (and Johnny equipments like Sunforger or Deathrender would become more playable, too).
About what you say below: I don't want to defend LAZY mono-colored builds. But I don't want to punish them, either, because that would mean punish the budget players. I can't do that as a host.
Plus, with some luck (and that's a factor), you might have the right sword against BOTH the opponent's dual-deck colors. So it's not just about mono-colored.
A case in favor of banning the Swords can be made based on the fact that they're the next best thing after Umezawa's Jitte, and Jitte was dangerous enough to be recognized as such by the WotC itself, which doesn't really check the Tribal Wars ban list in probably a decade.
In a creature format, that kind of effect is relevant. And honestly, the "but if you have the right answer, they're fine" is a flawed line of defense. Then everything is fine. The issues need to be analyzed when you DON'T have the answer. How warped do the games become at that point? They seem pretty warped to me, due to inevitability: it's hard to trade with a Jitte-equipped creature, but it's not inconceivable.
And more arguments can be made: the "rewarding luck" argument; the "promoting deckbuilding laziness" argument, and so on.
Just saying, of course.
Yeah, they are the go-to final slots when you don't want to think of anything different. While there are other good equipments that could see play instead, within tribes that care for those (like, say, Troll).
I'm thinking of a ban limited to Pure events. I'd like to ban stuff in Underdog, but I want to keep it simpler: Underdog is where the restriction targets the tribes, Pure is where it targets the cards (off-tribe stuff, T9. There's some tribes banned, too, but nowhere close to Underdog, that bans 1/4 of them). So, in short, I'd rather not ban specific cards in Underdog.
Budget players have plenty of low-cost mana-fixing options, I don't really think anybody is forced to play mono-color. Three-color decks really want fetches and duals most of the time, but two-color decks can get by just fine on many alternatives under a dollar. I don't agree with giving any special protection to mono-color decks, as I don't really find Yet Another White Weenie Deck and Yet Another Mono-Red Aggro Deck to be that valuable to the format. And in either deck there is ample instant-speed removal to kill a guy in response to a sword-equip. Those decks might also just win before the Sword becomes relevant. You yourself have gone back and forth over the issue of whether or not cards that punish mono-color builds are good or bad for the format, and it sounds like there's still some diversity of opinion on that point.
It's mainly because a Sword is the ultimate randomness, you often have 1-of of 2-3 of them, so drawing into the right one is sheer luck. They're more cause of sorrow than most of the other strong plays. I mean, Batterskull is strong regardless, doesn't feel like something that's targeting you specifically, which makes you feel bad. And yeah, I came to think that the mono-colored builds should be protected. They're a budget player's refugee, and sometimes all that minor tribes can do.
(It's 5 mana, by the way, they cost 2 to equip. Loxodon Warhammer is 3+3).
Thanks for shout out Kuma :) I am looking forward to toying with sirens and perhaps badgers too (did you know that badgers and wolverines are in the same family? I bet you did since you named it. )Anyway love the fighting spirit of those animals and they are strangely becoming as well.
I don't think banning swords from pure will be great for morale because they tend to be relatively accessible now and are often a first answer to much of what is broken in creature removal for tribal wars. But I get the temptation. It sucks to see everyone tread the same tired path when you've been over it hundreds of times. Particularly when there are actually quite a rich variety of possible answers to choose from instead of the usual suspects. Swords are costly in game (6 mana to legit cast & equip) though unlike STP and most of the T9. I have lost quite a few games with a sword on the board too so they aren't game ending, unless your op is in monocolor. And imho the monocolored players make themselves vulnerable as a tradeoff for their efficient draws and plays.
Thanks Rex for posting AJ's finals game. Since I wasn't there that weekend it was good to see it. Slug is a tough customer and that Merfolk deck looked nasty.
Also Rex's challenge looks fun.
I think it would be fine to add Swords of X&Y to the banned list from Pure, as they are the sort of card like StP/Bolt/etc that is good both with and against almost any creature-based deck, which is what Tribal is. But you have to be careful of that list creeping and growing, because you are basically asking new players to remember two distinct banned lists: the normal list, and the pure list. Plus the pure format has banned *tribes* on top of that. The rotating sub-formats of Tribal Apocalypse may keep things fresh week to week, but they also have a cost in terms of format complexity, and those two things have to be balanced against each other.
But as a counterpoint to banning it, I think there is some value in the fact that the Swords' presence gives higher value to otherwise marginal tribes and creatures that interact well with artifacts. I also believe that since SFM was "restricted" to Kor and Artificer decks, which are basically legal once or at most twice per month, the original strength of the blades has greatly diminished. That too came at some cost, as easy access to blades was one of the things helping increase the play of minor weenie tribes like Pegasus or the Boros Samurai deck I twice went undefeated with back in 2011. We speculated at the time that Steelshaper's Gift or Enlightened Tutor would take SFM's place, but neither card has made much of a splash. W/o SFM, you can't just play one each of 3-4 different ones and get the perfect one for each matchup. For some reason, I guess because of alot of our guys being commander players too, playing one of each is still the norm, even without tutoring ability. Overall, I think the influence of those blades is in an acceptable place right now.
And yes that was the first time I'd seen the hilarious pig token. It is hands-down the funniest thing they have put in a Magic set in ages.