1) Classic is the most diverse format with so much variety, I find it so much more fun than any other format.
2) It is expensive which is a problem for some new players to get into.
3) The classic community rules.
4) WOTC should adjust the prize pay-out to make classic winnings more to attract more players.
Know that while sometimes I didn't care for your manners in the game, a lot of that was clarified for us by Kuma's insightful interview with you. (Language barrier, being introverted to the point of shyness, etc.)
After that I began seeing you in a different light. However in all the time I've know you online you have always been a top competitor. Beating you was always an important goal for me. Which leads me to my next thought:
It seems a bizarre twist that someone's psyops campaign was able to stop you from doing what you love. I don't blame you, but I do think it very sad that people got that far under your skin. It is also despicable that such people can't find something better to do with their time and energy but sometimes loathing makes the world go around. :/
As for what you can do about it, do what AJ suggests and take some time to reconsider and then slowly come back. The accusations leveled at you stem from jealousy and the fact that you don't play "nice guy". You need some perspective to see them for what they are.
I now know why I read your article less and less every month Pete. You just ramble on about stuff you have no clue about, and speak as if you're an authority on it. I recall your ramblings about Knuston buying up dual lands causing everything to be messed up. Now you're going on about classic, and you're way out of your league here.
I personally top 4'ed the last league with an all creature fish deck. That by your thinking should be super fun. The league has been won by duranoth and montilo playing creature based decks. Hell look to the classic events and you can even see gobblin and elf decks winning sanctioned tournaments. So hell the format must be super fun and healthy by that metric.
What wizards has done here is crapped on classic for the last half decade. Even before legacy came on line as the eternal format, classic never saw the support it desreved as a pillar format. When was the last classic MOCS? Oh yah NEVER.... Classic pack payout has been inconsistent and often not linked to other eternal formats. Even before all of that, when classic was firing lots of events every week, we got shafted on prime time slots. The slow bleeding out of classic is what's killed things, not because you don't like workshop decks or oath decks.
You know what I totally missed? That the Colossus becomes a 20/20 after the monstrosity activation. Yeah, it's not bad. Both those Golems are going to be played in Tribal, I think.
I could write an entire article someday about the extraordinary lengths that people go to in a quest to gain status or notoriety in the Magic community. Some of those efforts have a positive effect, some negative, but they are all baffling in their own way.
I have not listened to the podcast in question, but it is abundantly clear that somebody was trying to gin up controversy to attract attention to his cast -- and for that reason I will not be listening to it anyhow. At one point in time, there were few MTG podcasts, and merely producing coherent and consistent content would have been enough to gain a following. Now there are a glut of them, and some people think they have to resort to yellow journalism to grab listeners. His infantile attempt to bully mihahitlor into appearing on his cast to "defend himself" were comically revealing, in that he has no idea A) how little relevance he has to anybody, and B) why people are actually involved in promoting PREs.
Running a PRE is a major time commitment. You can say all you want about being "paid to play games", but you have to block out 3-4 hours of your week per event, and commit to that like it were a real job. Your girlfriend wants to go camping? Sorry, gotta run this Magic tournament. Friend came up with hockey tickets at the last minute? Sorry, gotta run this Magic tournament. There is no way I would commit to running a weekly PRE for anything less than $40/wk, and it would be a tough sell even at that figure.
The people who play in PREs rely on the willingness of the hosts to make these ridiculous time commitments for minimal financial compensation. If I were trying to drum up controversy to add a dozen listeners to my unashamedly pointless and unnecessary podcast, I'd avoid targeting people who work hard in this community.
I never played Heirloom. Speaking strictly of Tribal Wars, I was no personal fan of mihahitlor's deckbuilding style, but it was efficient and finely tuned to produce x-1 or better results consistently against the PRE-level competition. As such, he was an excellent grinder. He typically just had 3 more removal spells in his hand than you had creatures, but on the rare occasions when he had to make a strategic judgment how much you valued one of your threats, he had pretty good instincts. His presence in Tribal Apocalypse almost single-handedly made "protection from white" the best ability in Tribal Wars, and "protection from black" the second-best. On more than one occasion, I threw away a deck in the building process because I knew it wouldn't pass the "Mihahitlor Test". He definitely had a huge impact on how decks in Tribal Wars are built, and was a tough competitor, and I'm sure he will be missed.
I kinda forget to finish my thoughts. Maybe that's what Happened with Pete here =- I'm not really sure where he was going with that.
That being said, I don't think any format that is firing DEs - even if it's much, much less than any other format - is really "dead".
And really, I think Vintage players would KILL for a 16 man tourney they could attend every weekend. I think it'll be just fine online. It won't fire off DEs like Modern does but then that's probably just fine for the average Vintage player. All that grinding is tiresome. :)
Suppose I'll chime in as the Modern Ambassador as well. A 1,600 person GP that ended with 6 different deck types in the the Top 8 IS exciting. After GP Detroit, everybody declared that the sky was falling and that Jund was going to dominate until the end of time. Instead, over the past few large events, the meta has adapted and continues to shift. They aren't brand new deck types, but that's how non-rotating formats seem to work. (Legacy is often a rotation of 10-12 decks battling it out.)
Anger of the Gods wasn't the only Theros card that people tried over the weekend. Thassa, Master of Waves, Stormbreath Dragon, Steam Augury and Nykthos all saw play as well.
While I know where you were going with the talk about Pros and GPs, this event showcased new or lesser known names, playing very solid Magic and putting up results. Even without Pros wielding shiny new decks, it was still a really good GP.
As always, I appreciate what you do for us week in and week out. Those comments just seemed a tad more negative than usual and it would be a discredit to what was possibly the best Modern GP to date.
I think you missed the coolest deck from GP Antwerp. Stanislav Cifka finished 25th with a Splinter Twin that dropped blue for white. Nothing says Modern like 4 Village Bell-Ringer.
"I am sad I had such strong reaction to all this stuff that I decided to leave MTGO, but what can I do."
You can give it some time, see if you miss it enough to warrant returning, and rebuild. Still, it was an honour playing against you, and whatever you decide, that won't change.
You missed the Archon tribal synergy: Celestial Archon on Krond, the Dawn-Clad, enabling you to activate it without using your spare slots for auras.
The Colossus of Akros is, in a deck planning to hardcast indestructible Colossi, better than the other two. Mana is less of an issue as you're ramping anyway, which means it hitting earlier and being both cheaper to activate and bigger are relevant. Not many things want to attack into a 10/10 indestructible, and not much can stop a 20/20 indestructible trampler.
Workshop prison decks are the top decks (along with aggro Affinity), but the format is much more diverse than you make it out to be. It's really not just combo decks. In fast, the prevalence of shops makes combo decks difficult to play in the format. Storm is non-existent right now. There are creatures everywhere. Elves moneyed a DE a few weeks ago.
I'm taking it personally because I'm a Classic player. But really it doesn't matter because Classic has a lifespan of 8 months now when Vintage comes out.
I kept waiting for the section to come to a point, and the point I was expecting was "what if the same thing happens to Vintage online?" For years there has been the hope underlying Classic that even if it's not very healthy right now, Vintage will be here some day. After next June, that hope is gone and whatever Vintage is is what it is.
For the record though, Classic is pretty healthy right now (as healthy as a format with only 50-100 regular players can be). There's an active PRE happening with 38 players signed up. And those Saturday night DEs fire fairly regularly (and one tournament a week is more than most paper Vintage players get). Yes, they took away some Classic events, but WOTC did their homework and left us with the one we had been concentrating on.
Just two corrections:
1.) I didn't get paid as a host for Standard Heirloom and Rotating Format Heirloom but I did for Classic Heirloom. I donated vast majority of those hosting tix for the Classic Heirloom Leagues though.
2.) As I sold my cards, I didn't give everything away. Little less than half of it I transfered to an online poker room. It's not as fun as Magic, but at least it will be more productive.
Anyway, it was fun playing Tribal Apocalypse. I am sad I had such strong reaction to all this stuff that I decided to leave MTGO, but what can I do.
It was nice dueling with all you guys, and again, great job on hosting and managing all Tribal related stuff, Kuma.
Your shots across the bow at "the weakest format of all time" are noted, but it sounds pretty silly when you say in one sentence "Other very, very expensive cards are only legal in Classic and Legacy" then go on to say "By comparison, if you buy into block constructed, many of your cards are also useful in Standard, and possibly even Modern". So, legal in two formats < legal in two formats? I'd be willing to bet a pretty penny most on the cards on the left side of this equation are *MUCH* more likely to see play in modern. Cards like Vendillion Clique, Dark Confidant, Griselbrand, etc. are much more useful and financially sound investments than the random one-trick pony mythics in Standard sets. How much from Theros is going to see Modern play? A few merfolk 4 drops, possibly.
Cards that are good in ONLY Vintage/Classic are not the longest list.
Sorry if I sound like I have a gripe here but it really looks like you are kicking a format while it is down instead of giving it even an *iota* of respect.
The best part is you make the whole format sound like a waste of money. The same people who enjoyed classic and have been playing all of these years will jump right onto the vintage bandwagon, make no mistake, but classic is/was a unique animal.
I had dinner with a fellow (visiting with my Dad) from Antwerp (or rather he lives in the vicinity). He acted like he didnt know where Alsace-Lorraine was. I explained my ancestors on my mom's papa's side were from there. :) Great article as always Slugster. Hopefully I will be around to either play in or watch the slugfest. In any case, a happy early birthday wish!
Slugapalooza is on Tribal Apocalypse too, to celebrate Blippy's longer hosting stint. Saturday, November 23, 17:00 GMT. Play with either a Slug Tribal deck, or another tribal deck that only includes your tribe, lands and Slugs (Human, Elf, and Goblin decks are banned. A minimum of 4 Slugs is required).
While you mention it in the individual card descriptions, if this deck is being aimed at competitive play, you should include the Sideboard in the first draft as well. While it doesn't have to be perfect at first, those other 15 cards are a part of the "whole 75" and give us an idea of how you intend to shift the deck around between match ups.
You will usually play more SB-ed games than default list G1's, so showing us your entire plan is useful.
Good luck with the build! I wonder if testing will slowly move you in the direction of RG Nykthos or if the Jund mix will prove more effective?
PlanetWalls: I'd definitely play Swords in a meta where I was expecting a lot of mirror matches. My Affinity plan is similar to my plan against Dredge. I expect I'll probably lose Game 1 and then I bring in the hate for Games 2 and 3. I've only played it twice and I'm 1-1, both matches going to three games.
StewardUlk: Happy to be of service. :) I tend to prefer the 'fair' decks just because I find the 'unfair' ones to be kind of boring and linear, esp. in Classic (maybe not quite as severe in Vintage because the format is actually paid attention to by the DCI and somewhat balanced out). I agree Trygon definitely gets better in Vintage with access to Moxen (and Time Walk), but I think BUG is definitely the better shell for the card in Vintage as opposed to Noble Fish (at least if you go by tournament performance).
Agree with all of that. I think MBC is also the most budget of the viable standard decks (I don't think mono red is that viable atm really), so if people are investing in the expensive rares for that deck, they can also use it in block which might be what happens.
while i dont like fair Decks in classic/vintage - any Article featuring me winning in a Vid is a good one. :)
That been said i also think that the deck is better in vintage then in classic, T.Predator is just so much better in vintage when u can realiable have it Turn2.
I like the content, and I also think this deck is pretty well-matched against the field. it doesn't seem to have that strong of a matchup vs Affinity, but the Trygons are decent against Stax. (Affinity hardly matters because it's peer pressured into such a small corner of the field.)
I would still probably play Swords rather than Path because Path seems worse to me in the mirror (because it doesn't do as much against Hierarchs and Deathrites). I understand why you made the decision you did, though.
Well on the classic topic, here are my thoughts:
1) Classic is the most diverse format with so much variety, I find it so much more fun than any other format.
2) It is expensive which is a problem for some new players to get into.
3) The classic community rules.
4) WOTC should adjust the prize pay-out to make classic winnings more to attract more players.
Event Activity Promo for November is Desertion? So I only need to play in one Daily Event or an 8-man draft to get a Desertion? Really?
Know that while sometimes I didn't care for your manners in the game, a lot of that was clarified for us by Kuma's insightful interview with you. (Language barrier, being introverted to the point of shyness, etc.)
After that I began seeing you in a different light. However in all the time I've know you online you have always been a top competitor. Beating you was always an important goal for me. Which leads me to my next thought:
It seems a bizarre twist that someone's psyops campaign was able to stop you from doing what you love. I don't blame you, but I do think it very sad that people got that far under your skin. It is also despicable that such people can't find something better to do with their time and energy but sometimes loathing makes the world go around. :/
As for what you can do about it, do what AJ suggests and take some time to reconsider and then slowly come back. The accusations leveled at you stem from jealousy and the fact that you don't play "nice guy". You need some perspective to see them for what they are.
I now know why I read your article less and less every month Pete. You just ramble on about stuff you have no clue about, and speak as if you're an authority on it. I recall your ramblings about Knuston buying up dual lands causing everything to be messed up. Now you're going on about classic, and you're way out of your league here.
I personally top 4'ed the last league with an all creature fish deck. That by your thinking should be super fun. The league has been won by duranoth and montilo playing creature based decks. Hell look to the classic events and you can even see gobblin and elf decks winning sanctioned tournaments. So hell the format must be super fun and healthy by that metric.
What wizards has done here is crapped on classic for the last half decade. Even before legacy came on line as the eternal format, classic never saw the support it desreved as a pillar format. When was the last classic MOCS? Oh yah NEVER.... Classic pack payout has been inconsistent and often not linked to other eternal formats. Even before all of that, when classic was firing lots of events every week, we got shafted on prime time slots. The slow bleeding out of classic is what's killed things, not because you don't like workshop decks or oath decks.
You know what I totally missed? That the Colossus becomes a 20/20 after the monstrosity activation. Yeah, it's not bad. Both those Golems are going to be played in Tribal, I think.
Thanks for what you said about running PREs. I mean it.
I could write an entire article someday about the extraordinary lengths that people go to in a quest to gain status or notoriety in the Magic community. Some of those efforts have a positive effect, some negative, but they are all baffling in their own way.
I have not listened to the podcast in question, but it is abundantly clear that somebody was trying to gin up controversy to attract attention to his cast -- and for that reason I will not be listening to it anyhow. At one point in time, there were few MTG podcasts, and merely producing coherent and consistent content would have been enough to gain a following. Now there are a glut of them, and some people think they have to resort to yellow journalism to grab listeners. His infantile attempt to bully mihahitlor into appearing on his cast to "defend himself" were comically revealing, in that he has no idea A) how little relevance he has to anybody, and B) why people are actually involved in promoting PREs.
Running a PRE is a major time commitment. You can say all you want about being "paid to play games", but you have to block out 3-4 hours of your week per event, and commit to that like it were a real job. Your girlfriend wants to go camping? Sorry, gotta run this Magic tournament. Friend came up with hockey tickets at the last minute? Sorry, gotta run this Magic tournament. There is no way I would commit to running a weekly PRE for anything less than $40/wk, and it would be a tough sell even at that figure.
The people who play in PREs rely on the willingness of the hosts to make these ridiculous time commitments for minimal financial compensation. If I were trying to drum up controversy to add a dozen listeners to my unashamedly pointless and unnecessary podcast, I'd avoid targeting people who work hard in this community.
I never played Heirloom. Speaking strictly of Tribal Wars, I was no personal fan of mihahitlor's deckbuilding style, but it was efficient and finely tuned to produce x-1 or better results consistently against the PRE-level competition. As such, he was an excellent grinder. He typically just had 3 more removal spells in his hand than you had creatures, but on the rare occasions when he had to make a strategic judgment how much you valued one of your threats, he had pretty good instincts. His presence in Tribal Apocalypse almost single-handedly made "protection from white" the best ability in Tribal Wars, and "protection from black" the second-best. On more than one occasion, I threw away a deck in the building process because I knew it wouldn't pass the "Mihahitlor Test". He definitely had a huge impact on how decks in Tribal Wars are built, and was a tough competitor, and I'm sure he will be missed.
I kinda forget to finish my thoughts. Maybe that's what Happened with Pete here =- I'm not really sure where he was going with that.
That being said, I don't think any format that is firing DEs - even if it's much, much less than any other format - is really "dead".
And really, I think Vintage players would KILL for a 16 man tourney they could attend every weekend. I think it'll be just fine online. It won't fire off DEs like Modern does but then that's probably just fine for the average Vintage player. All that grinding is tiresome. :)
Suppose I'll chime in as the Modern Ambassador as well. A 1,600 person GP that ended with 6 different deck types in the the Top 8 IS exciting. After GP Detroit, everybody declared that the sky was falling and that Jund was going to dominate until the end of time. Instead, over the past few large events, the meta has adapted and continues to shift. They aren't brand new deck types, but that's how non-rotating formats seem to work. (Legacy is often a rotation of 10-12 decks battling it out.)
Anger of the Gods wasn't the only Theros card that people tried over the weekend. Thassa, Master of Waves, Stormbreath Dragon, Steam Augury and Nykthos all saw play as well.
While I know where you were going with the talk about Pros and GPs, this event showcased new or lesser known names, playing very solid Magic and putting up results. Even without Pros wielding shiny new decks, it was still a really good GP.
As always, I appreciate what you do for us week in and week out. Those comments just seemed a tad more negative than usual and it would be a discredit to what was possibly the best Modern GP to date.
I think you missed the coolest deck from GP Antwerp. Stanislav Cifka finished 25th with a Splinter Twin that dropped blue for white. Nothing says Modern like 4 Village Bell-Ringer.
He did a deck tech here in case you didn't see it: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcove...
"I am sad I had such strong reaction to all this stuff that I decided to leave MTGO, but what can I do."
You can give it some time, see if you miss it enough to warrant returning, and rebuild. Still, it was an honour playing against you, and whatever you decide, that won't change.
You missed the Archon tribal synergy: Celestial Archon on Krond, the Dawn-Clad, enabling you to activate it without using your spare slots for auras.
The Colossus of Akros is, in a deck planning to hardcast indestructible Colossi, better than the other two. Mana is less of an issue as you're ramping anyway, which means it hitting earlier and being both cheaper to activate and bigger are relevant. Not many things want to attack into a 10/10 indestructible, and not much can stop a 20/20 indestructible trampler.
Can't argue on Sables.
Workshop prison decks are the top decks (along with aggro Affinity), but the format is much more diverse than you make it out to be. It's really not just combo decks. In fast, the prevalence of shops makes combo decks difficult to play in the format. Storm is non-existent right now. There are creatures everywhere. Elves moneyed a DE a few weeks ago.
I'm taking it personally because I'm a Classic player. But really it doesn't matter because Classic has a lifespan of 8 months now when Vintage comes out.
I kept waiting for the section to come to a point, and the point I was expecting was "what if the same thing happens to Vintage online?" For years there has been the hope underlying Classic that even if it's not very healthy right now, Vintage will be here some day. After next June, that hope is gone and whatever Vintage is is what it is.
For the record though, Classic is pretty healthy right now (as healthy as a format with only 50-100 regular players can be). There's an active PRE happening with 38 players signed up. And those Saturday night DEs fire fairly regularly (and one tournament a week is more than most paper Vintage players get). Yes, they took away some Classic events, but WOTC did their homework and left us with the one we had been concentrating on.
Just two corrections:
1.) I didn't get paid as a host for Standard Heirloom and Rotating Format Heirloom but I did for Classic Heirloom. I donated vast majority of those hosting tix for the Classic Heirloom Leagues though.
2.) As I sold my cards, I didn't give everything away. Little less than half of it I transfered to an online poker room. It's not as fun as Magic, but at least it will be more productive.
Anyway, it was fun playing Tribal Apocalypse. I am sad I had such strong reaction to all this stuff that I decided to leave MTGO, but what can I do.
It was nice dueling with all you guys, and again, great job on hosting and managing all Tribal related stuff, Kuma.
Your shots across the bow at "the weakest format of all time" are noted, but it sounds pretty silly when you say in one sentence "Other very, very expensive cards are only legal in Classic and Legacy" then go on to say "By comparison, if you buy into block constructed, many of your cards are also useful in Standard, and possibly even Modern". So, legal in two formats < legal in two formats? I'd be willing to bet a pretty penny most on the cards on the left side of this equation are *MUCH* more likely to see play in modern. Cards like Vendillion Clique, Dark Confidant, Griselbrand, etc. are much more useful and financially sound investments than the random one-trick pony mythics in Standard sets. How much from Theros is going to see Modern play? A few merfolk 4 drops, possibly.
Cards that are good in ONLY Vintage/Classic are not the longest list.
Sorry if I sound like I have a gripe here but it really looks like you are kicking a format while it is down instead of giving it even an *iota* of respect.
The best part is you make the whole format sound like a waste of money. The same people who enjoyed classic and have been playing all of these years will jump right onto the vintage bandwagon, make no mistake, but classic is/was a unique animal.
Zach
I had dinner with a fellow (visiting with my Dad) from Antwerp (or rather he lives in the vicinity). He acted like he didnt know where Alsace-Lorraine was. I explained my ancestors on my mom's papa's side were from there. :) Great article as always Slugster. Hopefully I will be around to either play in or watch the slugfest. In any case, a happy early birthday wish!
Slugapalooza is on Tribal Apocalypse too, to celebrate Blippy's longer hosting stint. Saturday, November 23, 17:00 GMT. Play with either a Slug Tribal deck, or another tribal deck that only includes your tribe, lands and Slugs (Human, Elf, and Goblin decks are banned. A minimum of 4 Slugs is required).
Awesome article! Sad to hear that your birthday thing will be on non-Euro hours
While you mention it in the individual card descriptions, if this deck is being aimed at competitive play, you should include the Sideboard in the first draft as well. While it doesn't have to be perfect at first, those other 15 cards are a part of the "whole 75" and give us an idea of how you intend to shift the deck around between match ups.
You will usually play more SB-ed games than default list G1's, so showing us your entire plan is useful.
Good luck with the build! I wonder if testing will slowly move you in the direction of RG Nykthos or if the Jund mix will prove more effective?
PlanetWalls: I'd definitely play Swords in a meta where I was expecting a lot of mirror matches. My Affinity plan is similar to my plan against Dredge. I expect I'll probably lose Game 1 and then I bring in the hate for Games 2 and 3. I've only played it twice and I'm 1-1, both matches going to three games.
StewardUlk: Happy to be of service. :) I tend to prefer the 'fair' decks just because I find the 'unfair' ones to be kind of boring and linear, esp. in Classic (maybe not quite as severe in Vintage because the format is actually paid attention to by the DCI and somewhat balanced out). I agree Trygon definitely gets better in Vintage with access to Moxen (and Time Walk), but I think BUG is definitely the better shell for the card in Vintage as opposed to Noble Fish (at least if you go by tournament performance).
Lifebane is also good in the Esper matchup if they're running Blood Baron.
Agree with all of that. I think MBC is also the most budget of the viable standard decks (I don't think mono red is that viable atm really), so if people are investing in the expensive rares for that deck, they can also use it in block which might be what happens.
while i dont like fair Decks in classic/vintage - any Article featuring me winning in a Vid is a good one. :)
That been said i also think that the deck is better in vintage then in classic, T.Predator is just so much better in vintage when u can realiable have it Turn2.
thumbs up for classic content.
I used to do it when I started. I'll look into doing it again.
I like the content, and I also think this deck is pretty well-matched against the field. it doesn't seem to have that strong of a matchup vs Affinity, but the Trygons are decent against Stax. (Affinity hardly matters because it's peer pressured into such a small corner of the field.)
I would still probably play Swords rather than Path because Path seems worse to me in the mirror (because it doesn't do as much against Hierarchs and Deathrites). I understand why you made the decision you did, though.