So long as the v4 cards don't match the look of paper cards, I can't support embracing it. Even the Chinese Counterfeiters can make a card look better than v4 does.
I realized after the tournament that each of your matches could easily be a finals match, opponents-wise. Which makes your overall win even more impressive and deserved.
Iron sharpens iron: This success is only possible because of the quality of the opposition playing in the event and in the Apocalypse, year in, year out. I did not register a single first place this season, though my decks went undefeated a number of times. Here's a little about those I faced this week.
Nagarjuna is a previous Horseman, and one of only three people to have played at every single Tribal Apocalypse invitational. A true pillar of the format, he is recognised as one of the all-time top 8 and rightly so.
I have faced Romellos twelve times in the Gatherling era prior to this event, with him the victor eleven of those times. (The one time I did get the better of him was with the deck I was able to reprise here.) He earned that top seed by being one of the tightest, sharpest deckbuilders I've ever witnessed, as pure an exemplar of the spike ethos as you could hope to see.
PK23 has a staggering 56 gold medals listed on Gatherling, more than anyone else that has ever used that platform. He has earned a truly fearsome reputation across a whole host of formats.
Slug360 was the title holder coming into the event and kept alive the dream of an unprecedented title defence all the way to the very last round. He knocked me out in the first round last year on the way to the title.
Any of those would have made a worthy and deserving champion. I am humbled to have the honour to face them in an event such as this, and of the quality of the others in the top 16.
I really liked the article and it was nice to revisit those old decks. I quit playing paper when it got to the point that I went to a tournament and there were twenty players and eighteen were playing Affinity. One store I knew of stopped having tournaments because they went from thirty players every week down to four.
I knew of another store where the owner had his own personal ban list for the store. He banned enough of the cards from Affinity that he nerfed the deck totally and people had to come up with something else to play.
One minor quibble: in the last line it should read "once in a while," not "once and awhile."
I'm looking for input on ways to improve the "impact on Magic: online" section. Anyone have ideas how to make it te est it can be? I'm looking for a way to relate these events to what happens on MTGO in some way.
Each of these decks is a classic AJ deck and I remember playing and tuning these decks with you. I can't say I am a huge fan of robots in tribal but if you are bringing them, might as well do so in style. I am a little surprised you didn't show off some of the fun stuff with Spine of ish sha and Krark Clan Ironworks that you came up with when spine first came out. That inspired some of my own later builds.
I know this wasn't in the topic this week, but can I just say that Vintage Masters will kill the Vintage format before it even gets started? Classic events for the year can be counted on your fingers, and if they put P9 cards in only the "super-mythic" foil slot of a 6.99 booster, the Classic/Legacy problem of the format being too expensive for the reward will only magnify. /rant
New rant: Any cards that are vintage staples that are NOT reprinted will skyrocket in price, thus keeping the format out of people's hands. It happens often. Look at the example of Modern masters and Thoughseize. Modern masters increases the supply of SOME modern cards, which increases the number of people who want to play modern. But there are bottleneck cards that aren't included but are still needed for decks, like Thoughtseize that go waay up in price.
The same thing happened with the dual land/force of will balance. If you increase the number of dual lands, people wanting to play dual land formats will increase, which increases demand for Force of Will, and any savings you get on one card that is reprinted is offset by price rises on other cards in the deck. Any vintage rares that are worth any money that aren't released in Vintage Masters are going to double or triple in price.
Imagine that a card will increase from 1 to 10 once new information is revealed. Then there are 3 scenarios:
A) The dealer knows before you; they set the price at 10, but you don't know why until later.
B) You both know at the same time; they set the price at 10, but now you know why immediately.
C) You know before the dealer; you cheat the dealer by buying the card for 1. The dealer doesn’t know until later.
If you cannot outsmart the dealer in scenario A, then you cannot outsmart the dealer in scenario B.
Like MarcosPMA said it, dealers changing their prices is speculation. If you are smarter than the dealer then wait until the information is released and outsmart the dealer at that point.
You are not feeling like the small man being cheated by the system. Instead you are angry that you cannot cheat the dealers even though you feel superior to them. I have no sympathy for that. Paul Leicht was spot with his comment.
- Excellent point. I tend to agree with you, Snow.
* Good.
- But is it really a problem in real life?
* Yes.
- The alternative is that the dealers know stuff at the same time as you do.
* Yes.
- In that case they would still increase/decrease their prices before you could exploit the knowledge.
* I like to think I am able to be smarter than the dealers.
- There is no scenario (fair or unfair) where you would know stuff before the dealer unless you had the godbook.
* If I was a long time pro player(or judge) and wrote things like; "Lisa concedes to Peter. Later that night Peter gives Lisa some boosters. This is not collusion.", then I might get the godbook and be able to join the dealers in exploiting things, if I wanted to.
- The dealer has limited scope for exploiting stuff he knows before you.
* Yes.
- Can they really initiate a big buy up if they know a card will increase in value?
* Yes.
- The number of uninformed people selling to the dealer should not be affected unless the dealer actively seeks out the card (by advertising?) and then you should read the signal that this card is now in demand.
* Would you sell a thing you know will rise in price ?
- In the end I don't think it changes that much that the dealer may get information before you.
* Dealers are like Bookmakers, its a competition between them and the players. For a competition to be fair it is important that no side receives information before time is due.
Yeah. I too question the presence of AEther Vial. I am guessing the main purpose of it is to land an uncounterable Fanatic of Mogis but that seems like a very slow way about it.
We will be using Gatherling for registration, but I can't open registration in advance or random people will get in. Reg will open 1 hour before the event.
It appears we are not using Gatherling for registration, since it's not on the site. So I will just see you guys in the tribal room about 30 minutes before kickoff. Didn't have as much time to prep as I'd have liked, since I have a jury trial next week and have articles to write for two sites going up Tuesday. I'm not even really that thrilled with my round 1 deck, but if I wash out I actually don't mind seeing some of these new guys have a good tournament. Last year slug360 used this as a launching pad and did great things for the tribal scene. So good luck everyone.
FYI, I will be resuming my series of deckbuilding challenges after the invitational. I also am hoping to be able to play in more events this spring, when the demands of wedding planning don't interfere :-) So here's to the start of a great 2014 for MTGO and keeping Tribal Wars strong!
Yeah, I agree Re:Polis Crusher. I 4-0ed my first Block Daily and Polis Crusher was a "oh crap" moment when I faced it in the mirror. I had to -3 Elspeth just to get rid of it. I didn't have Crusher in my 75 and that was a mistake as I faced the mirror 3 times.
But is it really a problem in real life? The alternative is that the dealers know stuff at the same time as you do. In that case they would still increase/decrease their prices before you could exploit the knowledge. There is no scenario (fair or unfair) where you would know stuff before the dealer unless you had the godbook.
The dealer has limited scope for exploiting stuff he knows before you. Can they really initiate a big buy up if they know a card will increase in value? The number of uninformed people selling to the dealer should not be affected unless the dealer actively seeks out the card (by advertising?) and then you should read the signal that this card is now in demand.
In the end I don't think it changes that much that the dealer may get information before you.
Even if they knew spoiled cards before we do, at they are doing is speculating. How the metagame shakes out can be entirely different from what they think might happen, if you read some of the articles on wizards.com they'll have developers write about decks in the FFL that never take off in real life, decks that are bad there are good in real life, etc.
You could also just not buy from a dealer. There are other ways to get cards than buying singles.
So long as the v4 cards don't match the look of paper cards, I can't support embracing it. Even the Chinese Counterfeiters can make a card look better than v4 does.
I realized after the tournament that each of your matches could easily be a finals match, opponents-wise. Which makes your overall win even more impressive and deserved.
Iron sharpens iron: This success is only possible because of the quality of the opposition playing in the event and in the Apocalypse, year in, year out. I did not register a single first place this season, though my decks went undefeated a number of times. Here's a little about those I faced this week.
Nagarjuna is a previous Horseman, and one of only three people to have played at every single Tribal Apocalypse invitational. A true pillar of the format, he is recognised as one of the all-time top 8 and rightly so.
I have faced Romellos twelve times in the Gatherling era prior to this event, with him the victor eleven of those times. (The one time I did get the better of him was with the deck I was able to reprise here.) He earned that top seed by being one of the tightest, sharpest deckbuilders I've ever witnessed, as pure an exemplar of the spike ethos as you could hope to see.
PK23 has a staggering 56 gold medals listed on Gatherling, more than anyone else that has ever used that platform. He has earned a truly fearsome reputation across a whole host of formats.
Slug360 was the title holder coming into the event and kept alive the dream of an unprecedented title defence all the way to the very last round. He knocked me out in the first round last year on the way to the title.
Any of those would have made a worthy and deserving champion. I am humbled to have the honour to face them in an event such as this, and of the quality of the others in the top 16.
I really liked the article and it was nice to revisit those old decks. I quit playing paper when it got to the point that I went to a tournament and there were twenty players and eighteen were playing Affinity. One store I knew of stopped having tournaments because they went from thirty players every week down to four.
I knew of another store where the owner had his own personal ban list for the store. He banned enough of the cards from Affinity that he nerfed the deck totally and people had to come up with something else to play.
One minor quibble: in the last line it should read "once in a while," not "once and awhile."
Glad to see you can still podcast from a wind-tunnel!
SERIOUSLY I THOUGHT YOU JUST BOUGHT A MIC ANDY <3
Anyways good show guys, I never miss a week! :)
It was really your best article. And it's saying something.
And apparently, J.J. Abrams was an affinity fan, too. :)
I´m really glad to see your creativity used in a decklist.
I'm looking for input on ways to improve the "impact on Magic: online" section. Anyone have ideas how to make it te est it can be? I'm looking for a way to relate these events to what happens on MTGO in some way.
No Rite of Replication in the copies deck? Kicked Riting a Precursor Golem has to be seen to be believed.
Great article man. Top notch, I learned a ton since I just came back to Magic in ISD
Excellent article, enjoyed reading it start to finish.
Each of these decks is a classic AJ deck and I remember playing and tuning these decks with you. I can't say I am a huge fan of robots in tribal but if you are bringing them, might as well do so in style. I am a little surprised you didn't show off some of the fun stuff with Spine of ish sha and Krark Clan Ironworks that you came up with when spine first came out. That inspired some of my own later builds.
5 fireballs for the article.
I know this wasn't in the topic this week, but can I just say that Vintage Masters will kill the Vintage format before it even gets started? Classic events for the year can be counted on your fingers, and if they put P9 cards in only the "super-mythic" foil slot of a 6.99 booster, the Classic/Legacy problem of the format being too expensive for the reward will only magnify. /rant
New rant: Any cards that are vintage staples that are NOT reprinted will skyrocket in price, thus keeping the format out of people's hands. It happens often. Look at the example of Modern masters and Thoughseize. Modern masters increases the supply of SOME modern cards, which increases the number of people who want to play modern. But there are bottleneck cards that aren't included but are still needed for decks, like Thoughtseize that go waay up in price.
The same thing happened with the dual land/force of will balance. If you increase the number of dual lands, people wanting to play dual land formats will increase, which increases demand for Force of Will, and any savings you get on one card that is reprinted is offset by price rises on other cards in the deck. Any vintage rares that are worth any money that aren't released in Vintage Masters are going to double or triple in price.
Imagine that a card will increase from 1 to 10 once new information is revealed. Then there are 3 scenarios:
A) The dealer knows before you; they set the price at 10, but you don't know why until later.
B) You both know at the same time; they set the price at 10, but now you know why immediately.
C) You know before the dealer; you cheat the dealer by buying the card for 1. The dealer doesn’t know until later.
If you cannot outsmart the dealer in scenario A, then you cannot outsmart the dealer in scenario B.
Like MarcosPMA said it, dealers changing their prices is speculation. If you are smarter than the dealer then wait until the information is released and outsmart the dealer at that point.
You are not feeling like the small man being cheated by the system. Instead you are angry that you cannot cheat the dealers even though you feel superior to them. I have no sympathy for that. Paul Leicht was spot with his comment.
- Excellent point. I tend to agree with you, Snow.
* Good.
- But is it really a problem in real life?
* Yes.
- The alternative is that the dealers know stuff at the same time as you do.
* Yes.
- In that case they would still increase/decrease their prices before you could exploit the knowledge.
* I like to think I am able to be smarter than the dealers.
- There is no scenario (fair or unfair) where you would know stuff before the dealer unless you had the godbook.
* If I was a long time pro player(or judge) and wrote things like; "Lisa concedes to Peter. Later that night Peter gives Lisa some boosters. This is not collusion.", then I might get the godbook and be able to join the dealers in exploiting things, if I wanted to.
- The dealer has limited scope for exploiting stuff he knows before you.
* Yes.
- Can they really initiate a big buy up if they know a card will increase in value?
* Yes.
- The number of uninformed people selling to the dealer should not be affected unless the dealer actively seeks out the card (by advertising?) and then you should read the signal that this card is now in demand.
* Would you sell a thing you know will rise in price ?
- In the end I don't think it changes that much that the dealer may get information before you.
* Dealers are like Bookmakers, its a competition between them and the players. For a competition to be fair it is important that no side receives information before time is due.
"No" to what you wrote.
Luis - he surely has a nice collection of foils. If he had it in paper it would make him a millionaire :)
Yeah. I too question the presence of AEther Vial. I am guessing the main purpose of it is to land an uncounterable Fanatic of Mogis but that seems like a very slow way about it.
We will be using Gatherling for registration, but I can't open registration in advance or random people will get in. Reg will open 1 hour before the event.
Well that at least partially explains why you never got back to me. Congrats in advance on your wedding to be.
It appears we are not using Gatherling for registration, since it's not on the site. So I will just see you guys in the tribal room about 30 minutes before kickoff. Didn't have as much time to prep as I'd have liked, since I have a jury trial next week and have articles to write for two sites going up Tuesday. I'm not even really that thrilled with my round 1 deck, but if I wash out I actually don't mind seeing some of these new guys have a good tournament. Last year slug360 used this as a launching pad and did great things for the tribal scene. So good luck everyone.
FYI, I will be resuming my series of deckbuilding challenges after the invitational. I also am hoping to be able to play in more events this spring, when the demands of wedding planning don't interfere :-) So here's to the start of a great 2014 for MTGO and keeping Tribal Wars strong!
Thanks for reading!
Yeah, that Red list is intriguing. I feel like it's a good start to tinker with.
Yeah, I agree Re:Polis Crusher. I 4-0ed my first Block Daily and Polis Crusher was a "oh crap" moment when I faced it in the mirror. I had to -3 Elspeth just to get rid of it. I didn't have Crusher in my 75 and that was a mistake as I faced the mirror 3 times.
Excellent point. I tend to agree with you, Snow.
But is it really a problem in real life? The alternative is that the dealers know stuff at the same time as you do. In that case they would still increase/decrease their prices before you could exploit the knowledge. There is no scenario (fair or unfair) where you would know stuff before the dealer unless you had the godbook.
The dealer has limited scope for exploiting stuff he knows before you. Can they really initiate a big buy up if they know a card will increase in value? The number of uninformed people selling to the dealer should not be affected unless the dealer actively seeks out the card (by advertising?) and then you should read the signal that this card is now in demand.
In the end I don't think it changes that much that the dealer may get information before you.
Even if they knew spoiled cards before we do, at they are doing is speculating. How the metagame shakes out can be entirely different from what they think might happen, if you read some of the articles on wizards.com they'll have developers write about decks in the FFL that never take off in real life, decks that are bad there are good in real life, etc.
You could also just not buy from a dealer. There are other ways to get cards than buying singles.